Economists: eight years for NJ jobs recovery
Long road to bring back 240,000 jobs
Rutgers University economists say New Jersey is starting to recover from the recession, but job growth will be slow.
New Jersey has lost 240,000 private sector jobs since December of 2007. Nancy Mantell, the director of the Rutgers Economic Service, says it will take years to recover.
“I’m looking for growth over the next ten years of about 0.7 percent a year which translates into 2,000 to 27,000 jobs a year. It’s going to take a long time to get back up to the peak level that we saw in 2007. I don’t expect to get back up to that level until about 2016.”
Rutgers economists expect unemployment to peak at about 10% this year then begin to edge lower. They anticipate the jobless rate won’t get down to 5% for at least another eight years.
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