Anti-Business New Jersey: job picture gets grimmer
N.J. job picture gets grimmer
The percentage of New Jerseyans working or looking for work has retreated to 1980s levels.
The current share of residents employed — now fewer than three in every five — was last this low in 1983, mirroring national figures.
And more than one-third of employable New Jerseyans have stopped looking for work, the highest level since the mid-80s.
For economists, those figures have significance for one historic reason: The last time so many people were sitting out of the workforce, many women were still choosing to stay at home rather than go out to work.
The social change that brought more women into the job market swelled the state workforce the past 30 years — and the problem isn’t that they left. The reasons for the downward trend in the percentage of residents employed may now be fueled by changing demographics — more old and young residents even as the population grows, and more who are struggling to train for available jobs. (Fletcher, The Record)
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