Job growth in the New York area over the past year outpaced every other region in the nation, with more than 77,500 new jobs reported in the latest national survey released yesterday by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The five boroughs alone led the local gains with 57,000 new jobs, or an increase of 1.5 percent, last month, compared with the October 2006.
“This is really good job growth for the city,” said Martin Kohli, an economist with the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The city outpaced the national average of a 1.2 percent increase over last year.
Leading the city’s job growth were business and professional services, covering fields ranging from the advertising to support services, such as temp agencies. The sector grew by 14,700 jobs in New York City.
Among the professional services, the advertising industry showed the strongest gains, growing by 7.7 percent over last year, the federal survey found.
Financial activities, powered in large part by the securities industry, generated 13,000 new jobs, while health and education accounted for 10,200 new jobs.
Construction jobs increased by 5.4 percent in the city, the largest increase in this industry since February 2001, even as the number of construction jobs nationally fell by 1.4 percent.
Not surprisingly, the number of manufacturing jobs in the city plummeted 3.3 percent – more than twice the national rate as heavy industry has been replaced by service jobs.
Meanwhile, the number of people working for the government grew a modest .5 percent in New York City with an additional 2,800 workers on the public payroll, including city, state and federal agencies.
Regionally, government payrolls expanded by 9,500 with most of those new jobs added in New Jersey, where growth in public sector employment has been the strongest in the region in recent years, Kohli said.
Despite the job growth, the federal agency found that unemployment in New York City inched up from 5 percent to 5.3 percent over last October as new job seekers outpaced new jobs.
Job growth in the suburbs grew at a far slower rate.
Long Island posted an increase of 5,300 new jobs and Westchester and Rockland counties added 6,000 new jobs.
In sections of northern New Jersey, including Bergen, Hudson and Passaic counties, there was almost no growth in new jobs.