After hitting records in June and July, the local labor market lost momentum in August, as both the work force and the number of jobs in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre metropolitan area slipped.
The unemployment rate, calculated for those who live in the region comprised of Luzerne, Lackawanna and Wyoming counties but may work anywhere, held steady at 6.3 percent in August, as the number both with and without jobs fell slightly. Across Pennsylvania, only Johnstown and East Stroudsburg had higher rates of unemployment last month, according to data released Tuesday by the state Department of Labor & Industry.
While the jobless rate was unchanged from July, it fell from 6.8 percent in August 2014 as 6,400 more people were working and 1,100 fewer reported being out of work. The labor force total of 283,500 slipped by 1,600 from July’s high point but was 5,400 higher than a year earlier.
Noting the year-over-year improvement, Steven Zellers, an industry and business analyst with the department, said, “overall it’s a fairly good report. The state’s been flat but you are still dropping.”
Zellers noted that declines in the jobless rate were broad-based across all three counties and cities are doing even better, with the rate down 1.3 percent in Wilkes-Barre, 1 percent in Scranton and 2.1 percent in Hazleton.
The number of nonfarm jobs within the region fell by 2,300 in August from July, and was 2,800 below a peak of 265,200 in June. But as with employment, the jobs total was 6,500 higher than a year earlier, the fourth-highest gain among Pennsylvania’s 14 largest labor markets and a growth rate more than twice the statewide average.
The largest monthly declines by category were 1,000 in health care and social assistance and 600 in retail trade. Both categories showed a healthy increase from August 2014, however.
Zellers said monthly ups and downs are expected, as job totals are based on survey samples. Healthcare jobs were up 1,000 in July and then down 1,000 in August, indicating “there may be something a little off kilter in the sampling,” he said.
More troubling, jobs in manufacturing and in mining, logging and construction fell by 200 and 500 respectively over the year. Still, manufacturing remains a slightly larger share of the local job market than the national figure.
“It comes and goes,” Zellers said about manufacturing. “It had been a steady decline and now it’s sporadic up and down,” with variations of 100 possibly due to rounding.
“Manufacturing has had its bumps,” agreed Eric Esoda, CEO of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Industrial Resource Council. But overall regional manufacturing employment in the council’s 11 counties “is up for each of the last three years,” he said.
Construction, Zellers said, faces its own headwinds, as this area has relatively little new residential development and “a lot of the institutional stuff isn’t quite back yet,” such as schools and municipal buildings.