A new report finds Jersey is struggling to keep up with many other states when it comes to creating new private sector jobs.

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Rutgers economist Joe Seneca, who co-authored the report, entitled “Employment Recession and Recovery in the 50 States: An Update,” says the Garden state has created almost 90 thousand private sector jobs, but “for the overall picture, New Jersey lost over 248 thousand private sector jobs during its recession…and that ranks New Jersey 30th among the 50 states in terms of job creation.”

At the same time, he says over the last 6 months, “New Jersey’s private sector job growth rate has been quite strong – it’s tracked a little bit above the national recovery rate…The recent story for New Jersey has been an acceleration in job improvement…we’ve added almost as many new jobs in the first 6 months of this year as we did all last year all of 2011 and that really bodes well.”

Seneca adds moving forward, “The national economic situation and the international economic situation are both concerns not only for New Jersey but for the country as a whole…The outlook for labor market are tepid…With slowing output growth, fiscal uncertainty in Washington and certainly nothing will be resolved before the election, and the continuing problems of debt and the European Union and the slowing of economic growth in China and other Asian countries – all combine to put question marks for the strength of the recovery going forward, and that certainly will echo in New Jersey.”

The Rutgers Regional Report is published by the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy.

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