After two years of explosive, post-pandemic growth, Pennsylvania’s job growth is returning to its pre-pandemic form.
- Revised numbers indicate the state’s employers added roughly 80,800 jobs in 2023, though the numbers could be revised further, according to L&I.
- That compares with six-figure growth in 2021 and 2022, when the economy was recovering from the depths of the Covid-19 pandemic.
- But while the pace may be slower, the labor market remains tight.
- “Even if you don’t have astronomical job growth, you’re still having job growth,” said Ryan Unger, president and CEO of the Harrisburg Regional Chamber and CREDC. “It’s still a competitive labor market and it’s going to continue to create challenges.”
- Indeed, four out of five Harrisburg-area businesses said they faced consistent or increasing challenges to hiring in the fourth quarter of 2023, according to a quarterly business survey by the chamber.
What’s with the downward revision: It reflects an annual exercise in matching disparate sets of jobs data, one that is more timely and one that is more accurate.
- The gap between the two sets over the last year is unusual, according to a report by the Independent Fiscal Office, a state agency that monitors economic and budgetary trends.
- The end result of recent revisions is job growth in Pennsylvania last year that more closely matches the pre-pandemic rate.
- Between 2014 and 2019, Pennsylvania added an average of about 56,000 jobs per year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, an arm of the U.S. Department of Labor.
- The state lost nearly 482,000 jobs when the pandemic hit in 2020 but added most of them back over the next two years.
- “The pace of recovery from that very deep, very short recession was sharply faster than recovery from the Great Recession,” said Steve Herzenberg, executive director of the Keystone Research Center in Harrisburg. He credited the rebound to the government’s policy response, which included stimulus checks for American households.
What’s the jobless rate: It was 3.4% in January, the same as December, and down from 3.8% a year ago.
- Low unemployment is one of the factors fueling a more competitive labor market, regardless of how many jobs are being created.
- In Lancaster County, the jobless rate was a record-low 2.3% in November and December, according to a report by the Center for Regional Analysis, an arm of EDC Lancaster County.
- In York County, the year-end jobless rate was 2.5%, according to a report by the center for the York County Economic Alliance.
- For the Harrisburg-Carlisle area, the rate in December was 2.4%.
- Still, some shifts may be underway.
- “In our conversations with Lancaster businesses, there appears to be more balance between employers and employees,” said John Biemiller, vice president of EDC Lancaster. “Employers are hiring for specific positions as opposed to the broader hiring efforts that were being put forth during the pandemic to fill a large number of openings. We’re also hearing that employers are experiencing less turnover among existing employees, which means fewer vacancies are being caused by workers leaving.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include revised statistics from the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry showing stronger job growth in 2023 than estimated in the original version of this story.
