Why does NJ have higher jobless rate than neighbors?
Sunday, January 20, 2013 Last updated: Sunday January 20, 2013, 12:04 PM
BY JULIET FLETCHER
STAFF WRITER
The Record
* Contracting industries, little part-time work, seasonal tourism and public-sector cuts keep unemployment well above U.S. rate.
Why is New Jersey’s unemployment rate so much higher than the rates of other Northeast states, as well as the nation’s?
Beyond the month-to-month ups and downs affecting New Jersey’s flow of jobs in a year, residents here routinely face a greater chance of being out of work than their northern neighbors.
In 2012, New Jersey’s unemployment started at 9 percent, peaked at 9.9 percent in August, and finished the year at 9.6 percent, the fourth highest in the country.
As New Jersey ends the year with an unemployment rate higher than when the year began, jobless workers might look to New York State, where unemployment ended 2012 at 8.2 percent, to New York City’s 8.8 percent rate, or to Connecticut’s 8.6 percent. All of those states in turn trend higher than the national unemployment rate, which was 7.8 percent in December.
