New Jersey faces surge in layoffs as U.S. job market outperforms expectations
Writer: Mirella Franzese
3 min read October 2024 — New Jersey’s major corporations have laid off thousands of employees in a statewide corporate restructuring spree, meanwhile the U.S employment rate has ticked back up, beating market estimates as 254,000 new jobs were added over 3Q24.
According to WARN Notices from the State Department of Labor, 59 New Jersey-based companies reported staff cuts between April and September of this year, totaling approximately 8,636 jobs lost — 5,358 of which were from 3Q24 alone.
Most companies rank among the state’s top employers, including Verizon, Bayer, Johnson & Johnson, Prudential, Walmart, and Citibank, among others. Further labor cuts are expected in the healthcare and pharmacy sectors, with CarePoint Healthcare confirmed to dismiss 2,602 employees across its medical centers by the end of the year.
Corporate leaders have cited organizational changes, bankruptcy, and financial instability as the root causes behind these decisions — all of which are part of a broader trend driven by the ongoing market volatility felt across the U.S.
“To continue to meet the needs of patients around the world today and for years to come, we must adapt and evolve our businesses in the midst of a complex and rapidly changing external environment,” a J&J company spokesperson said in a email statement, as cited by Biopharma media outlet Fierce Pharma.
Compared to other states, New Jersey has been heavily impacted by layoffs. With positive job growth seen across multiple markets, the U.S. unemployment rate fell by 0.1% every month since July, reaching a moderately strong 4.1% in September.
Conversely, New Jersey’s unemployment rate of 4.8% ranks sixth highest in the nation, only losing out to Washington, California, Illinois, Nevada, and Washington D.C, in that respect.
According to Fiscal and Economic Policy Expert Kitty Richards, the current outlook for the national labor market is strong — surprisingly so. “We saw job creation beating expectations, unemployment rate ticking ever so slightly down, and we saw great wage growth which has continued to outpace inflation,” said Richards, as cited by New Jersey Monitor. “Wage growth is strong and has been outpacing inflation for about 16 months now and those are all really good things.”
New Jersey’s population density — the highest in the country — combined with underlying market conditions, such as high interest rates (despite the recent rate cut) and inflation, may be to blame for the labor market’s recent hiring freeze, economists say.
“There are a lot of people looking for jobs, and if companies stop hiring and lay some people off, it’s going to be felt pretty immediately,” said Chris Hayes, a labor historian at Rutgers University, to Woodland Park-based newspaper North Jersey.
The statewide layoffs in the private sector follow a period of unprecedented job growth experienced over the last couple of years, which saw the addition of 200,000 jobs to the regional economy.
Despite a noticeable slowdown, New Jersey’s labor market saw moderate job gains over the past 12 months.
The state added a total of 58,600 nonfarm jobs from August 2023 to August 2024, with 83% of these gains belonging to the private sector (namely education, healthcare, trade, transportation and utilities), according to a recent press release from the Department of Labor & Workforce Development.
The public sector similarly recorded modest gains over the one-year period with the creation of 10,000 jobs. New Jersey’s unemployment rate showed no change from the previous year, at 4.8%.
Financial experts believe that last month’s Fed rate cut of 50 basis points will further reduce labor market strains and overturn the slowdown in job gains — but also caution that a positive impact to the economy is still months away.
In addition to the market correction — which offers a more positive outlook for the near-term — some of the companies handing out discharge papers have shared plans to rehire demobilized employees. For instance, the YMCA in Wayne, which dismissed 157 workers in August of this year, expects to rehire most of them by 2025, according to the town’s mayor.
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