Official Site of The State of New JerseyNew Jersey Labor Market Ended 2024 on Steady Note
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 23, 2025
TRENTON – Preliminary labor market estimates for December, produced by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, indicated a steady New Jersey labor market. The state’s unemployment rate remained at 4.6 percent, while total nonfarm employment increased by 7,200 jobs to reach a seasonally adjusted level of 4,396,600 jobs.
Revised estimates of total nonfarm employment in November saw a downward revision of 2,200 jobs, resulting in a monthly gain of 900 from October to November. The state’s unemployment rate for November remained unchanged at 4.6 percent.
In December, six out of nine private industries recorded employment gains compared to November. Sectors that recorded employment gains include professional and business services (+3,900), education and health services (+2,600), leisure and hospitality (+1,300), trade, transportation, and utilities (+900), other services (+600), and financial activities (+200). Sectors that recorded job losses include construction (-2,100), and manufacturing (-500). The information sector recorded no change over the month. The public sector added 400 jobs for December.
Over the past 12 months New Jersey has added 30,300 nonfarm jobs, with about 77 percent of those gains in the private sector. Three out of nine private sector industries recorded a gain between December 2023 and December 2024. These include private education and health services (+44,000), trade, transportation, and utilities (+3,000), and other services (+300). Losses were recorded year-over-year in professional and business services (-8,600), information (-6,500), leisure and hospitality (-4,300), manufacturing (-2,300), financial activities (-1,400), and construction (-800). The public sector has recorded a gain of 6,900 over the past 12 months.
Preliminary BLS estimates data for January 2025, as well as benchmarked employment and labor force data for 2024 and prior years, will be released on March 13, 2025.
NJ Employment Situation Highlights: December 2024
Technical Notes: Estimates of industry employment and unemployment levels are arrived at through the use of two different monthly surveys.
Industry employment data are derived through the Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey, a monthly survey of approximately 4,000 business establishments conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) of the U.S. Department of Labor, which provides estimates of employment, hours, and earnings data broken down by industry for the nation as a whole, all states and most major metropolitan areas (often referred to as the “establishment” survey).
Resident employment and unemployment data are mainly derived from the New Jersey portion of the national Current Population Survey (CPS), a household survey conducted each month by the U.S. Census Bureau under contract with BLS, which provides input to the Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) program (often referred to as the “household” survey).
Both industry and household estimates are revised each month based on additional information from updated survey reports compiled by the BLS. In addition, these estimates are benchmarked (revised) annually based on actual counts from New Jersey’s Unemployment Compensation Law administrative records and more complete data from all New Jersey employers.
Effective with the release of January 2018 estimates, the Current Employment Statistics (CES) program has converted to concurrent seasonal adjustment, which uses all available estimates, including those for the current month, in developing seasonal factors. Previously, the CES program developed seasonal factors once a year during the annual benchmark process. For more information on concurrent seasonal adjustment in the CES State and Area program, see https://www.bls.gov/sae/seasonal-adjustment/.
