Jobless rate at 20-year high

Area health and education gains fail to offset manufacturing losses.

By Michael Wentzel
Staff Writer

(March 4, 2004) — More area residents were out of work in January than
at any time in the last 20 years.

The unemployment rate in the six-county Rochester area jumped to 7
percent, representing about 39,600 people looking for work, according to
statistics released Wednesday by the state Department of Labor.

In January 1984, the unemployment rate was 8.5 percent and 41,800 people
were unemployed.

“These numbers are part of the continuing loss of manufacturing jobs,”
said Tammi Marino, a department economist.

Since January 2003, the number of manufacturing jobs in the Rochester
area fell to 78,300, a decline of 9,300 or more than 10 percent,
according to state estimates.

The area has lost almost 5,000 manufacturing jobs since December alone.

Kent D. Gardner, director of economic analysis with the Center for
Governmental Research, called January “not a good month at all.”

“But I’m confident the unemployment rate is a statistical anomaly and
we’ll see it come back down in February to the same range it’s been,”
Gardner said.

The unemployment rate in the Rochester area in January was up from 5.7
percent in December and 6.5 percent in January 2003. The number of
people unemployed was 32,700 in December and 37,300 in January 2003.

The area’s strongest job- growth sector since January 2003 was
educational and health services with 100,100 jobs, an increase of 4,000
in one year but down 400 from December 2003.

Marino said the statistics indicate a “bottoming-out” in job losses in
telecommunications and trade and suggest that improvement should occur
later in the year.

The state estimates the area had 5,700 telecommunications jobs in
January, down 5 percent in a year. About 60,300 had retail trade jobs,
down almost 3,000 since December but equal to January 2003. Finance and
insurance jobs increased 4.8 percent to 15,200 in a year.

The Rochester metropolitan area covers Monroe, Genesee, Livingston,
Ontario, Orleans and Wayne counties.

The unemployment rate for the state was 7.2 percent, up from 6.2 percent
in December and 7 percent in January 2003.