Long Island adds 24,600 jobs, state report shows

Long Island's job market gained momentum last month.

The Island had 24,600 more jobs in October than it did the year before, a 1.9 percent increase, the state Labor Department said Thursday. It was the largest year-over-year increase for any month since 2013.

The Island's private sector showed even stronger growth. It had 26,100 more jobs, or a 2.4 percent increase. On a percentage basis, the Island's job growth was second only to New York City's 2.6 percent among the state's major metro areas. And the local growth exceeded both the state's and nation's 2.2 percent private sector increase, on a year-over-year basis.

"This suggests that the labor market on Long Island is tightening, which should lead to stronger wage growth going forward," said John A. Rizzo, chief economist for the Long Island Association, the region's largest business group.

Some areas of the local job market continue to struggle. For example, the government sector shrank by 1,500 jobs, the most of any employment category, mostly because of public-school layoffs. Those losses cut the Island's net employment gain to 24,600 jobs.

The local private-education and health-services sector led growth, up 11,200 jobs from October 2014. Construction, one of the Island's highest-paying sectors, came in second with a 7,400-job increase.

Even manufacturing, which hadn't grown year over year in almost three years, eked out an increase of 200 jobs, said Shital Patel, labor-market analyst in the department's Hicksville office.

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What's more, the sector's month-to-month gain of 700 jobs in October, compared with September, was more than three times the typical increase between those months and could bode well for future employment in the sector, Patel said.

"Maybe the large losses we have had [in manufacturing] are ending," Patel said.

And the sector is experiencing labor shortages, especially for entry-level jobs, she said, and as a growing number of older manufacturing workers retires.

All told, Long Island had 1.33 million jobs in October, up from 1.30 million the year before. The department uses year-over-year comparisons because local data aren't adjusted to reflect seasonal swings in employment.

Linda Zanette found a job in the growing professional and business-services sector, which had the third-highest number of new jobs: 4,600. In August she became a controller at Old Bethpage-based Advance Group, which owns Molloy Bros. Moving & Storage, after working as a temp in the position for about two months. The Hicksville resident previously worked for a large Queens construction company but left after about two years because "it wasn't a good fit."

Zanette said working as a temp aided her successful job search and recommended it for other job seekers and for managers.

"As a prospective employee, it really kind of shows you what the job is," she said. For employers, "this gives you the opportunity to see if they are really a good fit."

The Labor Department will release Long Island's October unemployment rate on Tuesday. In September the rate dropped to 4.5 percent, from 4.8 percent the year before.