Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate slid a notch to 7.5 percent in October. However, given the massive distortions that occurred in the estimates of labor force, employment and unemployment nationally, it is highly likely that the October number tells us very little about the actual direction of the state’s unemployment situation. Perhaps the corrections and adjustments coming for the November figures will reveal a more useful picture.
On the other hand, the establishment survey data should offer a more reliable look at the number of payroll jobs in the state—that is, the count of workers getting a paycheck from a business or other establishment. In this survey, we see no net gain in employment from September to October as the private sector increase of 5,700 was exactly offset by the same decline in government jobs.
Within the private sector the picture is incredibly mixed. A slight decline in mining jobs was offset by small gains in construction and manufacturing to lift the goods producing sector up by 2,100. At the same time within the services sector trade, transportation and utilities dropped 2,300 jobs, education and health employment tumbled by 7,800 and other service edged down by 600. But those losses were more than offset by a sizable 7,700 pickup in professional and business services, a 5,400 jump in leisure and hospitality and a small rise in information services.
In professional and businesses services, the principal drivers have been employment services and services for buildings and dwellings. Those two sectors account for the bulk of the gain in administrative and support services employment over the past year. Professional, scientific and technical services jobs managed only a slight 1,000 gain after showing substantial strength earlier in the year.
In the larger picture, the jobs growth pattern continues to slow with a gain of only 38,000 private sector jobs since October of 2012 compared to a rise of 50,000 from October 2011 to 2012 and a jump of 74,500 between October 2010 and October 2011.
