Syracuse, NY -- The recession is over in Central New York, but that doesn’t mean the economy has returned to normal, a New York state economist told the Thursday Morning Roundtable. By economic indicators, the local economy began to rebound in May and has continued to grow since, said Roger Evans, principal economist for the state Department of Labor....
Syracuse, NY -- The recession is over in Central New York, but that doesn’t mean the economy has returned to normal, a New York state economist told the Thursday Morning Roundtable.
By economic indicators, the local economy began to rebound in May and has continued to grow since, said Roger Evans, principal economist for the state Department of Labor.
About 85 people attended the roundtable which is a weekly civic forum about issues of local interest sponsored by the University College of Syracuse University.
Using a slide show presentation, Evans described the recession in Central New York and offered some predictions of where people will find jobs in the future.
According to experts, the national recession began in December 2007, and began crawling out of the trough in June 2009, he said. It lasted 18 months, and was the longest since World War II for the nation.
Syracuse didn’t react to the recession until almost a year later than the rest of the country, Evans said. It went into the recession later, and is coming out later, he said.
In the past, recessions have been triggered by downturns in the manufacturing sector, Evans said. This time, the national recession was triggered by the collapse of the housing and financial sectors as well as manufacturing, he said.
Syracuse didn’t experience a housing bubble, although it did suffer some of the financial problems brought on by banks, but not to the extent of the rest of the country, Evans said. Here, the recession started with manufacturing, he said.
The local recession also hit a different population. In the past, younger and less educated workers experienced job cuts, Evans said.
This time around, more 40 and older workers have lost their jobs and are collecting unemployment, according to state statistics.
“This time it’s a lot of people in their 40s, 50s, and 60s who cannot afford to retire and are looking for their next job.” Evans said.
The biggest problem with the recession today isn’t that there aren’t any jobs, “ there are jobs out there,” he said. It’s that people cannot find a job that will replace their prior earnings, Evans said.
So which jobs are growing in Central New York?
Evans said that they are in private education, health care services and the leisure and hospitality industry. Those industries have already moved out of the recession, while manufacturing is still lagging, he said.
There is also a growth in private contractors doing services for small businesses, Evans said.
In many cases companies would “rather see your business card than your resume,” he said.