LI's June year-on-year job loss cuts deep
From left, Christopher Langan, 46, of Massapequa, and Anita Lowndes, 40, of Massapequa, both currently unemployed, use the computers at Massapequa's Workforce Partnership Career Center to search for a job. (July 21, 2011) Credit: Danielle Finkelstein
Long Island's year-over-year job loss in June was the biggest in the past 16 months because of stepped-up layoffs in both the private and public sectors.
The state Department of Labor said Thursday that the Island had 6,800 fewer jobs last month compared with the same time last year, a sign the economic recovery may be stalling.
The private sector had 1,400 fewer jobs, the first loss for that sector in a year. The public sector, which has been contracting for some time, had the biggest losses -- 5,400 jobs. Most of that decline reflected the layoff of temporary census workers.
"It's more evidence that we're not out of the woods yet," said Michael Crowell, senior economist in the labor department's Hicksville office. "At the beginning of the year it looked like we were headed for a quick recovery. But now we are headed in the wrong direction."
The weaker Long Island numbers come as the national employment market slowed significantly last month and added a paltry 18,000 jobs.
The deteriorating numbers, coupled with a recent rise in layoff announcements, casts more gloom over the employment market here and nationwide. On Long Island, CA Technologies, the Islandia-based software company, on Wednesday said it plans to lay off up to 500 employees but declined to say how many on the Island. And Northrop Grumman announced it would close its Melville facility and lay off 44 employees beginning in September.
"The problem seems to be that the private sector has come to believe that the economy will slow down in the second half of this year and, therefore, they are beginning to cut their labor overhead by laying off workers again," said Pearl Kamer, chief economist for the Long Island Association.
New filings for unemployment benefits rose 10,000 last week, the government said.
Anita Lowndes of Massapequa, unemployed since she lost her data-entry job in October, is going back to school to study business administration.
"I'm 40 years old," she said. "I walk into a place to get interviewed, and I look young, but once they really find out my job history and realize how old I actually am, I get pushed aside for the younger person with the college education."
Mary Bartels, 47, of Farmingdale, lost her maintenance job in 2008 and is hoping to break into the beauty industry. But it's been difficult. "They either hire someone else, or tell me they don't think I'm qualified, and I did not get a chance to demonstrate my skills," she said.
As grim as the job losses have become on Long Island, some local employers still can't find enough qualified candidates for increasingly specialized jobs in a global economy.
Qosina, an Edgewood company that distributes components used in the medical and cosmetics industries, has three hard-to-fill openings for customer-service reps, said its president, Stuart Herskovitz. The catch: The reps must speak Mandarin, French or German.
"These are good jobs, if we can get the people," he said.
