New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr. today issued his office's analysis and seasonal adjustment of April job numbers that were released by the New York State Department of Labor and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

"In the month of April, 31,800 more New Yorkers were working, and the number of unemployed fell by 4,700 on a seasonally adjusted basis," said Comptroller Thompson. "This reduced New York City's unemployment rate to 8.3 percent."

"For the first time since September 2000, the City has had a single month's seasonally adjusted growth of more than 10,000 private-sector jobs," added Comptroller Thompson. "This is the largest single-month growth in jobs in two and a half years. While I am pleased with this figure, we must not lose sight of the fact that New York City has lost more than 230,000 jobs since December 2000."

The jobs numbers are reported according to the new NAICS classifications¹.

The April data showed that the gap between New York City's job growth and that of the nation narrowed for the first time in 2003, to 1.16 percentage points, slightly below the January gap of 1.2 percentage points. The City has lagged the nation since April 2001, with the gap significantly widening in September 2001 and generally narrowing through January 2003, as can be seen in Chart 1.

Chart 1. New York City Continues to Lag the Nation, Year-over-Year Monthly Percent Changes in Jobs, January 2000 through April 2003, United States and New York City

2003	NYC Y/Y CHANGE	US Y/Y CHANGE	NYC - US CHANGE
Jan	-1.2%	0.0%	-1.20%
Feb	-1.6%	-0.2%	-1.39%
Mar	-1.8%	-0.2%	-1.57%
Apr	-1.4%	-0.3%	-1.16%

Data Source: Computations by the NYC Comptroller's Office based on data from New York State Department of Labor and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (Y/Y = Year over Year)

Since December 2000, New York City has lost 230,500 jobs, seasonally adjusted, of which 150,800 (or 65.4 percent) have been lost since September 2001. The losses for the private sector were 222,500 since December 2000 and 141,800 (63.7 percent) since September 2001.

Seasonally Adjusted Jobs Were Up by 8,700 in April - Private Jobs Were Up by 10,700 but Government Jobs Fell by 2,000

Seasonally adjusted government jobs fell by 2,000 - 1,500 from local government agencies and 500 from state agencies.

Seasonally adjusted private-sector jobs rose overall by 10,700 jobs. More than half of the seasonally adjusted gains were in professional and business services, which rose by 6,400 jobs, almost entirely accounted for by a rise of 5,700 administrative (managerial, headquarters) jobs. Other big gainers in seasonally adjusted jobs were construction, which rose by 2,900 jobs; education and health services, which rose by 2,200 jobs; and the important financial activities sector, which rose by 2,000 jobs.

The largest loss of seasonally adjusted jobs was in the leisure and hospitality industry, which fell by 1,600 jobs. Trade, transportation and utilities lost 500 jobs, manufacturing lost 300 jobs and "other services" lost 800 jobs.

These numbers may be seen in Chart 2, which combines several related NAICS categories to simplify the analysis.

Chart 2. Change in New York City Jobs by NAICS Category, April 2003 Compared with March 2003, Seasonally Adjusted

Data Source: New York State Department of Labor and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Revised Series based on NAICS Job Categories. (Numbers are rounded.)

April Unemployment Rate of 8.3% Is Down Slightly from March; 31,800 More New Yorkers at Work

The City's unemployment rate in April 2003, seasonally adjusted, fell to 8.3 percent from 8.5 percent in March.

The reason for the April drop was that 31,800 more New Yorkers were working. The number of unemployed fell by 4,700. Combining the two numbers, the labor force grew in April by 27,100, having fallen by 34,500 the month before.
New York City's April seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 8.3 percent is 2.3 percentage points higher than that of the nation's seasonally adjusted April unemployment rate of 6.0 percent.

Unemployment by Borough, April 2003 and Comparison with a Year Earlier

Within New York City, on a nonseasonally adjusted basis, the April unemployment rate was highest in the Bronx at 9.9 percent and lowest in Queens and Staten Island at 6.8 percent. Unemployment was 8.9 percent in Brooklyn and 7.8 percent in Manhattan.

On a year-over-year basis, unemployment rose the most in the Bronx, an increase of 1.1 percentage points from 8.8 percent in April 2002 to 9.9 percent in April 2003. The next-highest increase was 0.8 percentage point in Staten Island, from 6.0 percent in April 2002 to 6.8 percent in April 2003. The unemployment rate in Brooklyn rose by 0.6 percentage point and in Queens by 0.4 percentage point. Manhattan saw a decline in the unemployment rate of 0.2 percentage point, from 8.0 percent in April 2002 to 7.8 percent in April 2003.