{"id":2212040,"date":"2024-04-03T08:42:02","date_gmt":"2024-04-03T12:42:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/pittsburghs-economic-doldrums-persist-despite-low-unemployment\/"},"modified":"2024-04-03T08:42:28","modified_gmt":"2024-04-03T12:42:28","slug":"pittsburghs-economic-doldrums-persist-despite-low-unemployment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/pittsburghs-economic-doldrums-persist-despite-low-unemployment\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh continues to face economic challenges despite low unemployment rates"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fpittsburghs-economic-doldrums-persist-despite-low-unemployment%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2212040&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Pennsylvania faces challenges with population decline and \u200dlow labor-force participation despite low unemployment. Pittsburgh&#8217;s economic performance is\u200d described as &#8220;very poor&#8221;\u200d and\u2063 job gains are weak, especially\u2064 in\u2062 recent years. The region struggles to recover employment levels, with a \u2063substantial\u2062 gap compared to 2019\u2062 figures. However, the unemployment \u200brate in Pittsburgh \u200cis relatively better than in other areas.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>(The Center Square ) \u2014 Pennsylvania has struggled to reverse population losses in much of the state \u2013 this despite its low unemployment rate.<\/p>\n<p>Labor-force participation rates have dropped, and the overall effect has been for \u201cemployment doldrums\u201d to set in, as one policy group argues.<\/p>\n<p>For Pittsburgh, the news is more dire.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJob gains in the state, region and city are weak, especially over the last four years,\u201d Jake Haulk, president-emeritus of the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy, wrote in a recent <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.alleghenyinstitute.org\/pennsylvania-and-pittsburgh-employment-doldrums\/\">policy brief<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>He called the Pittsburgh metro area\u2019s economic performance \u201cvery poor\u201d over the last decade and \u201ceven worse\u201d in the last four years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnfortunately, the private sector has not recovered to the 2019 employment level and in 2023 remained 27,000, or 2.5%, below the 2019 count, the highest level posted since 1990,\u201d Haulk wrote.<\/p>\n<p>Though employment hasn\u2019t recovered, workers in Pittsburgh are doing better than most. The Pittsburgh region\u2019s unemployment rate <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.workstats.dli.pa.gov\/Documents\/Monthly%20Press%20Releases\/pghmesa_pr.pdf\">dropped further to 3.2%<\/a><\/strong> in February, according to the Department of Labor &#038; Industry, lower than the 3.4% statewide rate and the 3.9% national rate.<\/p>\n<p>Of the 11 \u201csupersectors\u201d tracked by the department, education, health services, and government added 6,200 jobs, while trade, transportation, and utility jobs had a seasonal decline of 1,400 jobs. Over the year, six of the 11 sectors had job gains, though professional and business services were down 3,300 jobs (1.8%).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe long term and recent weakness in Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh MSA job gains (relative to other states and absolute) pose serious issues for policy makers,\u201d Haulk wrote. \u201cFailure of workers to return to downtown offices post-pandemic, massive shortfall of ridership at Pittsburgh Regional Transit, and the inability of the Pittsburgh International Airport to recover to pre-pandemic passenger levels are all serious problems.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Pennsylvania\u2019s labor-force participation rate has been a concern as its working population retires. State agencies have warned that a <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecentersquare.com\/pennsylvania\/article_84605600-84c3-11ee-aa8f-cf7e400d257a.html\">\u201csilver tsunami\u201d<\/a><\/strong> could push up the cost of government services faster than tax revenues grow. As the population <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JedKolko\/status\/1775131043290300542\">ages nationally<\/a><\/strong>, older workers have started to retire. Younger workers dropping out of the labor force isn\u2019t driving the changes, though youth out-migration from Pennsylvania is an issue.<\/p>\n<p>Nor does there seem to be an easy fix.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s probably not a behavioral reversal that could bring people back in and boost labor supply,\u201d Jed Kolko, former under secretary of economic affairs for the U.S. Commerce Department, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JedKolko\/status\/1775136114111619414\">said on X<\/a><\/strong> (formerly known as Twitter).<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pennsylvania battles population decline despite low unemployment. Decreased labor-force participation leads to employment challenges. Pittsburgh, in particular, faces dire job market conditions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2212041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/wex-s3.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/AP22291065488833-1024x576.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[538],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2212040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-washington-examiner"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/wex-s3.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/AP22291065488833-1024x576.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2212040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2212040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2212040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2212041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2212040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2212040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2212040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}