Yesterday, State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli released an update on the New York State economy. The report highlights mixed results for the State and hints that the recent economic recovery (as weak as it has been) may be losing steam. A key metric indicates that New York has regained about 46 percent of the jobs lost during the recession; however, most of these regained jobs are at lower salary levels than the ones that were lost. The average salaries of the new jobs are nearly 40 percent lower than the jobs lost. Also, the jobs regained occurred early in the economic recovery and the private sector has actually lost more than 11,000 jobs since July 2011.

The report is a virtual “sort of” good news bad news story:

Employment – The State unemployment rate stood at 8 percent in December, which is down nearly a full percentage point from the recessionary peak and lower than the national average of 8.5 percent, but the number of long term unemployed (more than 27 weeks) in New York stands at 350,000. Also, most of the decline in the unemployment rate reflects a decline in the size of the active labor force rather than increases in employment (this is consistent with national trends)

• The public sector continues to shed jobs and is down nearly 30,000 over the last two years, with two thirds of the cuts coming from local governments.
• The recovery of jobs remains very uneven across the State.  The Rochester region has regained nearly 98 percent of lost jobs; but the Albany, Binghamton, Ithaca and Long Island regions continue to lose jobs. Buffalo, Lower Hudson Valley and Mid-Hudson Valley regions have regained less than 15 percent of the jobs lost.

Gross State Product – the state’s economic growth is influenced by the nation and estimates for growth in the New York economy are coming in around 1.7 percent, which is below the national average.

• Manufacturing activity is seeing some improvement in the latest survey, but remains below levels experienced in most of 2010 and early 2011.
• Consumer confidence is improving, but remains far below pre-recession levels.

Retail sales have shown improvement as measured by sales tax collections and areas of the state with large tourism industries have shown the most improvement.  The Lower Hudson Valley and Long Island have experienced the weakest growth.

Real Estate has shown improvement since 2009, but has still only regained about half of the fall in home prices experienced between 2006 and 2009.  Upstate residential sales have shown improvement nearly across the board, but Long Island and NYC metropolitan areas have recently seen sales drop. (Dave Lucas)