Region Added 3,900 Jobs Since April 2010

The number of people employed in the Lehigh Valley region in April was up 3,900 over the same time last year, according to preliminary statistics from the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry.

That number might be revised downward somewhat when the final report for April is published, but it will still reflect real growth, according to Steven Zellers, Labor Department industry analyst.

The April jobless rate for the region--which includes the counties of Lehigh, Northampton, Carbon and Warren County in New Jersey for state statistical purposes--was 8.2 percent, down a tenth of a percent from March. In Lehigh and Northampton counties, the rate was 8 percent.

That’s still higher than Pennsylvania’s rate overall, which was 7.5 percent in April, but lower than the national rate of 9 percent--which is up two-tenths of a percent from March, statistics show. 

Regionally, jobs in professional and business services rose by 2,000. That includes positions in tax preparation, landscaping and other services that usually show seasonal increases in April. But 1,600 of the jobs came in employment services, which is mostly temporary employees. Traditionally, employers hire temp workers before hiring permanent ones while they are testing the waters of an economic recovery, employment analysts say.

Other areas that saw improvements were manufacturing with 400 jobs added in April, which put the total at 1,400 more over April 2010. Educational and health services saw an increase in 400 jobs since March. Mining, logging and construction typically add jobs as the weather warms and that’s true this spring; that sector is up by 1,000 jobs since March, statistics show.

Restaurants, hotels and other segments of the leisure and hospitality sector added a total of 1,300 jobs since April 2010. 

Government employment continued to decrease. Since April of 2010, federal, state and local governments have lost 2,100 jobs. The overall drop in federal positions since last April is mostly attributable to the loss of the temporary U.S. Census jobs that ended last year, Zellers said. 

Although the jobless rate only dipped slightly in April, the number of people employed and counted as part of the workforce was much healthier than in March. From February to March, people in the seasonally adjusted labor force decreased by 3,300 to 416,300. Those counted as employed were also down. That raised questions about whether more of the unemployed had dropped out of the workforce because they had grown discouraged and stopped looking for work.

At the time, Zellers cautioned against reading too much into such fluctuations.

In response to the better April numbers, Zellers said he expects a slightly less rosy economic picture when the figures for April are finalized next month. The preliminary figures look at a smaller sample over a shorter period of time, he said.