It’s Another Month of Positive Jobs News for NJ

New Jersey in November continued its strong stretch of private sector employment growth.

Preliminary labor data show private sector employers added 8,000 jobs last month, bringing the added total to 48,200 over the past four months and 55,100 for all of 2015.

Four of the nine major industry sectors — education and health services, construction, professional and business services and trade, transportation and utilities — posted gains in November.

"We recouped 240,000 jobs since the Great Recession," said Hal Wirths, commissioner of the Department of Labor and Workforce Development. "Almost all of them are in the private sector."

The public sector, meanwhile, recorded a loss of 100 jobs last month.

Adding to the good news, New Jersey's unemployment rate ticked down to 5.3 percent, compared to a high of 9.8 percent in early 2010. This comes even as the state's labor participation rate increased by 0.3 points.

"Its morally great news, it's economically-great news, and it definitely will help our strong economic rebound," Wirths said, adding New Jersey was hit hard by the one-two-three punch of the recession, Superstorm Sandy and the inevitable realignment of the Atlantic City casino landscape.