New Jersey’s economy lost nearly 26,000 jobs between June and July this year, newly released federal and state figures show. The trend closely matches what’s happening at the national level, experts say.
The sour jobs data comes against the backdrop of tariffs, the war in Iran, the ensuing closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which drove up gas prices, and overall weak hiring and layoffs amid the rise of artificial intelligence…
Nonfarm payroll employment levels — which exclude agricultural workers, nonprofit workers, self-employed workers, sole proprietors, active military and private household workers — were “essentially unchanged in 48 states” and Washington, DC, in July, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said in an Aug. 21 release.
Meanwhile, the state revised the job losses between May and June, showing that it lost 4,200 jobs, rather than the initial estimate of 300 jobs.
“The magnitude of the July dip (and the downward revisions for June) is somewhat striking,” said Will Irving, a professor at the New Jersey State Policy Lab at Rutgers University in New Brunswick.
But he said the numbers are “more or less consistent with expectations of slowing national and state growth over the second half of the year.”
Irving is the co-author of a July report by the Rutgers policy lab that predicted employment in New Jersey would grow just 0.2% the rest of this year, before improving to 0.5% in 2027.