Trade, transportation and utilities, a sector that includes retailers, lost 1,400 jobs last month. Rutgers University economist James W. Hughes said it could be a sign retailers in the digital age are hiring fewer workers for their bricks-and-mortar stores.
Still, New Jersey has slowly but surely rebounded from the Great Recession, overcoming superstorm Sandy, Fort Monmouth’s closure, Atlantic City’s downsizing and the giant millennial generation that fled the suburbs for the cities, Hughes said.