WASHINGTON: Employment in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre metro area continued marginal improvement in June with the jobless rate falling two-tenths of a percentage point to 6.1 percent. Health care and social assistance sectors saw the most gains in people getting work, with 1,100 new jobs created around the corridor from Carbondale to Hazleton, according to preliminary unemployment statistics released Tuesday by the state Department of Labor & Industry.
The regional rate still trails the state unem-ployment rate, which actually grew one-tenth of a percentage point to 5.6 percent. The national rate also clicked up two-tenths of a percentage point to 4.9 percent. The labor force in June actually shrank by 100 workers from May, receding to its April size. “Year over year, it is up 2,500, which is very good,” said state business and industry analyst Steven Zellers. “That hearkens back to when you were losing about that much every single month because of the recession and slow recovery.”
The seasonally adjusted number of unemployed people shrank by 800 to 17,100, in part because some people left the workforce, but the number of people who went back to work was really what drove down the rate. “Basically, it ticked down for all the right reasons, even though you had a number leave the labor force, the majority of them went from unemployed to employed,” Mr. Zellers said. The Northeast had the 14th-lowest unemployment rate among the state’s 18 metro areas.
Johnstown metro area held its spot with the highest unemployment rate, although was down three-tenths of a percentage point to 6.8 percent. The Gettysburg area enjoyed the lowest rate, 3.8 percent unemployment. The rate there also was down one-tenth of a percentage point. Total nonfarm jobs within the metro area were up 700, a shift of about two-tenths of a percent from May. Jobs were up more than 1 percent from June 2015. Health care jobs continue to play a big role in new job creation, a result of the region’s aging population that requires more health services, Mr. Zellers said. While the unemployment rate has been trending downward the last two months, it remains virtually flat from this time last year.
Past rates appeared lower because people quit looking for work, said Teri Ooms, executive director of the Institute for Public Policy & Economic Development. “There have been a couple points in time this year, in 2016, where there was actually demonstrated job growth,” she said. “What would make me really happy: if we show month after month for the next three, four months, if the labor force numbers stay the same, and get the employed numbers increased. Then we’re talking about something sustainable.”
