Its diverse economy spanned
The nation's labor market has recovered, but not in New Jersey. From August 2013 to August 2014, a revised report released Thursday showed, the state added 6,700 jobs, amounting to 558 new jobs a month. It is so few that it would take 44 years to find positions in the state for New Jersey's 294,700 residents who were unemployed in August.
The fall has been fast.
Fifteen years ago, in 1999, New Jersey created 107,400 jobs. Its diverse economy spanned from international pharmaceutical companies in the north to giant telecommunications companies in the middle to monster casinos in the south.
That began to change in the early 2000s. Employers fled the state's high taxes for low-cost Southern states that rolled out generous incentives. But since the recession ended, New Jersey has another problem on its hands: Some of its most prized employers are dropping everything and leaving for Massachusetts and California — states that are just as expensive but have powerful networks of academic research and investment capital that cutting-edge and high-paying companies crave, observers say.
New Jersey is in dire need of a reboot.