By Joe Arney
Well, when the governor calls a press conference to talk about a jobs report, you know you’re primed to hear some of the best news in a long time.
Sure enough, Chris Christie was in full on told-ya-so mode today, touting the addition of 17,600 jobs in May as further proof that the “New Jersey Comeback” is here to stay.
Far be it from me to complain — the faster New Jersey adds jobs, the faster I’ll be able to quit the news racket and get myself a real job. But right now, it looks like most of those jobs are low-paying service positions cleaning the toilets at the just-opened Revel casino, as opposed to the kind of higher-wage positions the state really needs to attract. And judging by the amount of capital — political and paper — New Jersey has tied into Revel, it’s unlikely we can afford to open enough casinos to power much of a jobs comeback.
In fact, taking a closer look at the numbers, you see New Jersey lost nearly 5,000 jobs in the financial activities sector; to my knowledge, financial and insurance professionals do not work for $12 an hour to swab the pool deck or bring mai tais to silver-haired slot players busy converting their Social Security checks into casino winnings.
Then, there’s all the public-sector hiring. Governments added a net 4,700 jobs, including 3,800 at the local level. Remember all the bluster about towns seeking to exceed the property tax cap, and how they should slash budgets like the love child of Jack the Ripper and Lizzie Borden, even if it meant jobs? Suddenly, Christie likes those jobs very much.
Look, as the state battles out of the depths of a painful recession, any job is a good job. But New Jersey still trails the nation in employment recovery, we’re still losing jobs in key areas and we’re still bending over backwards to create a tax cut we can’t afford. The New Jersey Comeback may have wheels, but we’re still waiting for someone to put an engine under the hood.
3 comments:
I wonder how many of those 3800 public sector local level jobs went to Middletown. Since 2008 how many jobs has Middletown cut to reduce the property tax burden and how many has it added? How many were managemen/supervisor level; how many were at the hourly level; how many were contractual; across all job description catagories gross added, gross cuts, final net?
Raising taxes creates more jobs, we need to do that immediately.
On one hand you argue for lower property taxes, and on the other, you say not to cut state income tax. So I come to the conclusion, property taxes are anti-democrat, but income tax is the democrat way???
Middletown cuts jobs every year, but the taxes continue to go up. Other costs, besides payroll, needs to be cut. The Administrator has negotiated with the employees on pay. He needs to negotiate with the insurance carriers. The Insurance Broker of Record is not doing the job in controlling those costs. We need to stop buying fuel at the local Sunoco gas station on Rt. 36, too.
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