The Post-Standard, June 28, 2011, Tuesday

The Post-Standard

June 28, 2011, Tuesday

The Post-Standard

Syracuse area economy: 8,000 fewer people at work, or looking, than in 2009

Published: Tuesday, June 28, 2011, 6:00 AM Updated: Tuesday, June 28, 2011, 9:00 AM

Kevin Cristaldi has been through all this before.

He lost his job at a Waterloo chemical plant that closed in 1982. He was laid off again 10 years later in the downsizing of an accounting firm in Potsdam. In 1998, the coffee-flavoring plant he worked for in Massena closed and his job was moved to Rochester. He followed, only to be laid off in 2001 when the plant shipped its operations out of state.

Then, after five years working for Parker Hannifin Corp. in Lyons, he lost his job in 2008. The plant shut down a year later.

Each time, Cristaldi, who lives in the Oswego County town of Volney, found another job relatively quickly.

Not this time.

“Before, you could be unemployed for a couple months, and you’d be back having a job,” said Cristaldi, 52. “I never thought I’d be out this long. No way I figured it would be 2 1/2 years.”

In those 2 1/2 years, Cristaldi has moved in with and cared for his ailing mother, collected the maximum 99 weeks of unemployment benefits and returned to school under a federal program to become a pharmacy technician. He finished the 25-week program through Onondaga-Cortland-Madison BOCES in February and passed his qualifying exam in March. He’s hoping to land a job at a pharmacy or a hospital.

Cristaldi is re-entering what some economists say is an improving job market — although a very, very slowly improving one. The local unemployment rate in April dropped to 7.6 percent, the lowest since fall 2008. Still, it’s a long way from April 2007, when the rate was 4.3 percent. And it’s even farther from the boom times of 2000, when unemployment fell as low as 3.2 percent.

“The national and local numbers for the recovery show that progress is quite slow and it’s turning out to be a lot bumpier than many people originally expected,” said Matthew Freedman, a professor in Cornell University’s Industrial and Labor Relations school. “What we’ve seen on the local and national level is job growth remains relatively anemic.”

Fewer people seek work

The Syracuse area’s unemployment rate was just below the statewide average of 7.7 percent and under the 8.7 percent national average for April.

The improving rate hides a troubling change that is the fallout from the deepest recession in decades.

Even though the unemployment rate is roughly the same as two years ago, about 8,000 fewer people were in the job market in Onondaga, Madison and Oswego counties, according to a state Labor Department survey of households.

That means that those 8,000 people have vanished from the local labor force since 2009. They aren’t working and they aren’t looking. Those people retired, moved away or got so discouraged by the job search they decided not to go back at all, economists say.

So, while the unemployment rate improved, it hides that the local economy is slow to add jobs.

About 3,500 net jobs were created in the Syracuse area during the past year, according to a state Department of Labor survey of businesses. The private sector added about 4,400 jobs, while government employers cut 900.

Unemployment rates in April varied: 7 percent in Onondaga, 8.2 percent in Madison and 9.7 percent in Oswego. Only five of the state’s 62 counties have rates higher than Oswego’s.

Rates won’t drop to pre-recession levels anytime soon, said Roger Evans, an economist with the state Labor Department.

“We’ve got a long ways to go before we achieve full recovery from the recession,” Evans said.

There are fewer unemployment filings than there were at the depths of the recession in 2009-10, but not many fewer. There were 2,139 first-time filers in April in Onondaga, Madison and Oswego counties. That’s a 25 percent drop from two years ago, but only about 4 percent fewer than last year.

Government cutbacks

The sector that lost the most jobs was government.

Overall, statistics in the Syracuse area showed a net drop of about 900 government jobs since May 2009. (Numbers in 2010 were swelled by temporary U.S. Census workers.)

Even with the losses, government remains a major employer in the area, with more than 59,000 people at federal, state and local levels. That’s nearly half again as many as the 40,000 people who work in the health care field.

As governments at all levels face budget deficits, they’re offering buyouts and laying off employees to save money. They’re also cutting back on other expenses.

“What’s even more worrisome is there are all sorts of important spillover effects from budget problems,” Freedman said. “Not only do we lose government jobs, but there’s also less contracting out. As a result, we see not only a reduction in government jobs, but a reduction in construction and other industries that contract with the government to do various things.”

Until last month, local school districts, which make up nearly half the total government jobs, grew or remained stable. That may change, however, as school districts begin cutting staff to make up for budget shortfalls. In May, school jobs dropped by 200 from the year before. Although that’s less than 1 percent, it’s the first decline in school jobs in May since 2000.

School employment has grown about 19 percent since 1990.

Seeing pay shrink

Unemployment rates and numbers don’t tell the whole story, however. They say how many people are working, but not how much they’re being paid.

That’s something Mike Dievendorf, of Fulton, knows too well. He lost his job at Ball Corp.’s plastic packaging plant in Radisson after it closed in 2009. Dievendorf trained forklift operators during his 20 years in manufacturing and before that he was in sales for 12 years.

“I was making $21 an hour at Ball,” said Dievendorf, 49. “I had an offer three months ago for $11 an hour.”

He turned it down. Dievendorf said he is taking classes to sharpen his skills in Excel and other computer programs while awaiting the promised end of the recession.

“You’re starting to see a glimmer of it,” he said, “but then you hear Birds Eye is closing ... and we’re losing New Venture Gear. I just see everything in manufacturing going overseas.”

Manufacturing’s slide

Construction, a bright spot a year ago when a national trade group ranked Syracuse in the top 10 metropolitan areas, lagged this year. Between February 2009 and 2010, the Syracuse metropolitan area was among just 10 of 337 in the country to add construction jobs, according to the Associated General Contractors of America. This year, Syracuse lost 300 jobs and fell to a tie for 188th place.

The contractors group said the decline in government spending on construction led to a decline in jobs in most metro areas of the country.

Employment in manufacturing held constant from 2010 to 2011 but has slid by nearly 38 percent in the past decade.

Between 2000 and 2010, the five-county area of Cayuga, Cortland, Madison, Onondaga and Oswego lost about 17,000 manufacturing jobs. That was partially offset by a gain of about 10,000 education and health services jobs.

Temporary employment services in the area say they’ve seen a boom in hiring over the past six months. Economists say that’s often a sign that businesses are dipping their toes in the waters of the economic recovery.

CR Fletcher Associates Inc. has twice as many people in temporary placements this month as it did in December, said Michelle Tracy, who speaks for the company. At CPS & Professionals Inc., in Liverpool, both the temporary and permanent hiring increased 50 percent in 2010 over the year before, said President Laurie Liechty.

About half of that increase is because the company expanded, and the other half is the economy, Liechty said.

“There’s an uptick,” she said. “It’s slow, and people are still cautious, but business has improved.”

Contact Glenn Coin at gcoin@syracuse.com or 470-3251.