jobs

While the State of New York is reporting its lowest unemployment rate in a decade, at 4.4 percent, Genesee County saw a slight uptick in its year-over-year unemployment rate, according to data released today by the Department of Labor.

The local rate is 5.8 percent. A year ago in February, it was 5.6 percent.

The state records 21,900 jobs in the county. This the third straight year the total number of jobs for February in the county hit 21,900. The highest February number over the past three decades was 22,400 in 2008.

Even at 5.8 percent, the jobless count is still lower than it has been over the past several years. with the exception of last year. The lowest local rate for February was recorded at 4.7 percent in 2001.

The February unemployment rate for the nation is reported at 4.7 percent.

A key indicator of the overall national employment picture is the prime-age percentage of the population in the workforce. It fell to 75 percent at the depths of the recession in 2010 and 2011. In February it hit its highest level since the recovery, 78.3 percent. Prior to the 2002 recession, it was as high as 82 percent.

The other interesting study that came out today, related to the national economy, is a report on what are called "deaths of despair" -- people dying of suicide, alcoholism or drugs, which rose dramatically among middle-aged whites from 2000 to 2014. According to the map, Genesee County was one of the few areas in the country that didn't see an increase in that statistic.

Press release:

The region’s largest seasonal employer is looking to fill 1,800 open positions across its multiple departments, including amusement park, water park, lodging, entertainment, retail and food service.

Darien Lake has already begun accepting applications for the upcoming season with some positions starting as early as April. The park will open for the 2017 season on May 6 with full, daily operations beginning June 15.

Darien Lake will be hosting an open job fair at the Park’s Lodge on the Lake Hotel on Saturday, March 18, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. For more information about the job fair and the types of positions available, visit www.darienlake.com/jobs.  

Interviews for the following positions will be held during the job fair: food service, park services, games, admissions, ride operations, lifeguards, rentals, warehouse, retail, hotel/campground, attractions, and security officers. Representatives from the Darien Lake Amphitheater, run by Live Nation, will also be at the fair to discuss seasonal opportunities.

“We’re seeking friendly, ambitious applicants of all backgrounds who are interested in helping us create memorable experiences for our guests,” said Darien Lake General Manager Chris Thorpe. “While we look forward to meeting our new team members, we are also thrilled to welcome back more than 800 rehires every year, filling a total of more than 2,000 positions.”

Special Perks and Benefits

·       Free Admission to the Park – An employee ID is equal to a 2017 Darien Lake season pass. Come as often as you like, free of charge!

·       Free Park Tickets for Friends & Family -- Where else can you work and earn free tickets to Darien Lake? Share the fun with your friends and family all season long.

·       Opportunities to Advance -- Our team members are on a fast track to success. With so many great opportunities, both new and returning employees can take on new challenges and develop their leadership skills.

·       Great Resume Building Experience -- Darien Lake offers great experience for future business leaders. Understand your labor force, how to manage inventory and interact with guests, all under the sun and in a place that’s all about fun.

Interested applicants can apply online at www.DarienLake.com/jobs or call the Darien Lake Job Line at 585-599-5108. 

The unemployment rate in Genesee County for December was 4.9 percent, exactly as it was a year earlier.

The GLOW area unemployment rate remained steady at 5.3 percent.

The state rate dropped from 4.7 percent to 4.5 percent year-over-year.

There were 22,900 jobs reported in Genesee County for December, the same as it was a year before.

The Department of Labor reports 27,700 people living in Genesee County with jobs and 1,400 who are looking for work.

Genesee County's unemployment rate continues to say in the low 4-percent range, according to the latest figures from the state's Department of Labor.

The September 2016 rate was 4.2 percent, compared to 4.1 percent a year earlier. 

There are 29,000 Genesee County residents with jobs, out of a labor force of 30,400. The labor force participation a year ago was 30,200.

Total non-farm jobs in Genesee County for September was reported at 23,500. A year ago, 23,600 non-farm jobs were reported in the county.

Genesee County's unemployment rate last month was at its lowest level for July since 2006, hitting 4.0, lower by sixth-tenths of a percent from July of last year.

In 2006, the rate was 4.0 and the last time it was lower was in 2001, at 3.7 percent. The highest rate over the past decade was 7.5 percent in 2012.

Nationally, the unemployment rate is 5.1 percent and for New York State it is 5.0.

In June for Genesee County, the unemployment rate was 3.7 percent. June's rate locally is usually the same or lower than July.

The county's labor participation total -- the number of people working or actively looking for work is 30,800. A year ago it was 31,400. The highest level this century was 34,800 in 2008.

The unemployment rate for the GLOW region is 4.5 percent, down from 5.2 percent a year ago.

In the Rochester area, the unemployment rate is 4.7 percent. It's 4.9 percent in the Buffalo area.

There were a reported 23,900 jobs in Genesee County in July, according to the NYS Department of Labor. That figure is 100 jobs below the number of a year ago in July.

Overall, New York added 131,000 jobs year over year. The Buffalo area added 4,400 jobs and Rochester added 700 jobs.

The region's unemployment rates for July have not yet been released.

At the start of the recession in 2008, the July report for Genesee County tallied 24,600. That number fell as low as 23,000 in 2013.

Goods-producing jobs in Genesee County held steady year over year, but service-producing jobs in the county fell from 19,900 to 19,800. Government jobs also fell from 5,500 to 5,400. Education and Health Services gained 100 jobs, going from 2,700 to 2,800.

In the past week, a handful of local business owners have told The Batavian they are finding it hard to find qualified candidates for open positions.

The unemployment rate for Genesee County fell to 3.8 percent in May, the lowest level for any monthly period since August, 2008.

The rate is a full percentage point lower than last May. 

The number of residents with jobs is 29,300, up from 29,100 from a year ago, while the number of participants in the labor force dropped from 30,600 a year ago to 30,400 this May.

As for the number of non-farm jobs in the county, we've gone from 23,700 to 23,800 from May last year to May this year.

The GLOW region unemployment rate dropped to 4.3 percent, from 5.3 percent a year ago. It hasn't been lower in the region since August 2007, when it was 4.2 percent.

The Genesee County unemployment rate was 5.3 percent in March, the lowest rate so far this year and lower than the 6.2 percent of March 2015.

The rate was 5.5 in February and 5.7 in January.

For the entire GLOW region, the unemployment rate was 5.8 percent, down from 6.7 percent a year ago.

The state rate is 5.2 percent.

On the jobs side, there were 22,100 non-farm positions reported in Genesee County for March, compared to 22,000 a year ago. 

The state's labor force participation rate, which had been in steep decline starting in 2009 has shown consistent increases over the past three or four months and is now 63 percent. A decade ago, it hovered around 66 percent. 

The labor force participation rate measures all people age 16 and older who either hold jobs or are looking for jobs.

Genesee County's labor force is reported as 29,900. It was 29,500 in March 2015; 32,800 in 2008. The lowest point for March over the past decade was last year.

There were 800 more residents of Genesee County with jobs in December 2015 than there were in December 2014, according to the latest figures released by the Department of Labor.

The county's unemployment rate for December was 4.8, 7/10ths of a percentage point better than last year, but 2/10ths higher than November.

The number of jobless claims fell year-over-year by 200, from 1,600 to 1,400.

There are 28,300 residents with jobs, compared to 27,400 a year ago.

As for the total number of filled non-farm jobs in Genesee County, the number held steady year-over-year at 22,600. It was 22,700 in November.

The unemployment rate for the GLOW (Genesee, Livingston, Orleans and Wyoming counties) is 5.1 percent. It was 6 percent a year ago and 7.1 percent at the start of 2015.

Genesee County's November unemployment percentage hit its lowest rate in nearly a decade, according to data released today by the Department of Labor.

The November rate was 4.6, which is better than the 5.1 rate a year ago, and better than the 8.5 rate at the height of the recession in 2009.

The rate in 2006 was 4.1 and it was 4.7 in 2007.

The October 2015 rate was 4.2. The November rate is traditionally higher than the October rate.

There are 200 more Genesee County residents employed in 2015 than a year ago, with 28,200 reportedly having jobs.

The GLOW region unemployment rate is 4.8 percent, compared to 5.6 percent a year ago.

There are 22,700 non-farm jobs in the county, compared to 22,900 a year ago and 23,200 in October.

Genesee County workers have something to be thankful for this season.

The unemployment rate — and the number of county residents without jobs — are both down, thanks in part, perhaps, to robust job creation in the Buffalo and Rochester regions.

Genesee County’s unemployment rate fell from 4.6 percent to 4.2 percent from October 2014 to October 2015, according to the New York State Department of Labor.

The Labor Department said there were 29,000 people with jobs in Genesee County, an increase of .2 percent from the 28,800 reported in 2014.

A total of 1,300 county residents are without jobs. That represents a decrease of .1 percent, or 100 people, between October 2014 and this year, the Labor Department said.

Jobless numbers were reported down in every county statewide. Unemployment in the Buffalo-Niagara region was 4.8 percent (down from 5.4 percent in October 2014), while the five-county Rochester region rate was 4.5 percent (down from 5.1 percent).

Unemployment rate figures are not seasonally adjusted, the Labor Department cautioned, meaning they do not reflect hiring related to holidays or the weather. Year-to-year comparisons are considered valid.

Between September and October 2015, the state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate decreased from 5.1 percent to 4.8 percent, its lowest level since 2007.

Meanwhile, the Labor Department on Tuesday said the state’s private sector job count increased by 168,600 from October 2014 to October 2015. The number of private sector jobs in New York state was a record 7,859,000.

The Buffalo-Niagara Falls and Rochester metro areas were among the top five in the state for private sector job growth.

Rochester added 8,400 private sector jobs between October 2015 and October 2014, an increase of 1.9 percent. Buffalo-Niagara falls added 8,700, an increase of 1.8 percent.

At the same time, Genesee County lost 200 private sector and government jobs, according to the Labor Department. That represents a decrease of .9 percent.

New York’s strengthening economy reflects the national outlook. U.S. economic growth during the third quarter was revised up to 2.1 percent, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

The U.S. Commerce Department had previously reported a rate of 1.5 percent, the Times said.

The news pleased economists:

For all of 2015, the rate of economic growth is expected to be about 2.5 percent, not much different from the 2.4 percent rate in 2014.

The tepid pace prompted Jan Hatzius, chief economist at Goldman Sachs, to call this the “tortoise recovery” in a recent note to clients. But that sobriquet does not mean the economy has been uniformly lackluster.

“While this expansion may go uncelebrated, growth in fact has been good enough to achieve a great deal of cumulative progress in the labor market,” he added. “We now expect that the U.S. economy will reach full employment within the next 12 months — the ‘tortoise recovery’ looks to be approaching the finishing line.”

The slight bump in Genesee County's unemployment rate for September over August can be attributed to people leaving the workforce, said Scott Gage, director of the Job Bureau.

The local labor market remains tight, with an unemployment rate of 4.4 percent.

The local trend holds statewide, Gage said.

"The labor force went down by 81,000 people (statewide)," Gage told WBTA. "Some 55,000 people retired, the other 21,500 either are going back to school or left just because their summer job ended."

There were 700 people in Genesee County who chose to leave the workforce at the end of the summer.

The 4.4 percent rate is still three-tenths of a percentage point than a year ago and much improved over the 5.9 percent rate in 2013 or the 7.1 percent rate in September 2012.

Employers continue to report they're finding it difficult to fill open positions and help wanted signs dot the landscape locally.

The NYS Labor Department reports 23,100 non-farm jobs in Genesee County, down for the 23,800 in August and down from the 23,400 in September 2014. Government jobs have dropped by 300 year-over-year while goods-producing jobs and private-sector service jobs have held steady at 4,100 and 13,500, respectively.

"We're seeing job openings across all sectors," Gage said. "Manufacturing, retail, service jobs, health care. There are job openings."

Genesee County's unemployment rate was reported at below 5 percent for the third straight month, with a July number of 4.7 percent.

The July rate is the lowest its been for the midsummer month since 2007, when the rate was 4.1 percent.

The 2015 figure is lower than a year ago when the rate was 5.0.

In all, the labor department currently lists 1,500 local residents without jobs and 17,800 with jobs.

The department also reports a total of 24,000 non-farm jobs in the county, up slightly from the previous July when there were 23,800 jobs reported. There were 24,400 jobs reported in the county in June.

The lowest recorded unemployment rate for July since 1990 is 3.4 percent. The highest jobs number for July since is 24,600 in 2008.

Local employers are faced with a new obstacle: too many job openings and not enough workers to fill them.

Due to a strengthening labor market, the number of people hunting for jobs is dwindling.

Genesee County's unemployment rate has dropped to 4.5 percent in June according to Department of Labor statistics. The county hasn't experienced an unemployment rate this low since October 2007.

With the unemployment rate at its lowest figure in eight years, positions are becoming harder to fill. Many local employers have increased their hiring since the beginning of the year. More than 300 job openings in the Batavia area are currently posted on the New York State job bank Web site. Some positions have been up for a couple weeks while others have been posted for months. 

Help wanted signs have even made a comeback as a way for employers to find workers.

"Employers put the help wanted sign out with the hope to attract a person who may not be Internet savvy, or a friend that will pass the information on to a person they know who is looking for a job," said Scott Gage, director of the Genesee County Job Development Center. "As the available talent pool gets smaller and smaller, you are going to see more of those help wanted signs because it is a low technology way to get workers."

Employers typically hire to fill entry-level positions and young emerging workers are their main source for these types of jobs.

Melissa Landers, human resource generalist for Batavia Downs Gaming and Racetrack, has been hiring a large amount young people to fill food and beverage positions for the racing season. Landers said it's hard to find workers because Batavia Downs is open every day of the year and people don't like to work overnights and holidays.

For jobs that require prior training or experience, Gage has recently seen the pool of available workers shrink drastically.

"Employers are having a hard time finding workers because there is such competition among themselves, especially for skilled workers," Gage said.

According to Gage, one of the hardest positions to fill is maintenance mechanics in the food-production industry. With the increased number of food-production companies in the county, mechanics that have experience repairing food-processing equipment are in high demand. The competition among employers has even caused wage rates to rise for the position. 

One reason for the shortage lies in the historical shift from an emphasis on trade skill jobs to jobs that require a college degree. Consequently, there is a smaller pool of workers who have vocational training. 

Gage frequently gets job orders from employers that are looking for people with vocational skills and students who have graduated from Genesee Valley Educational Partnership are strong candidates for these jobs.

"Emerging workers with vocational training have a leg up in the workforce," Gage said. "They are getting wage rates similar to students who have completed two years of college."

While employers look for applicants with training and similar work experiences, it's also important to find an applicant with a strong work ethic and positive attitude.

Shelley Falitico, director of Genesee ARC, looks for applicants that are compassionate and open to learning different approaches for working with people who have disabilities.

Due to a new two-year contract the ARC has signed with area schools, she has recently been hiring bus drivers to transport children with disabilities.

The positions Falitico finds most challenging to fill are physical therapists and speech pathologists. Competition is high for these positions and many qualified applicants relocate to bigger cities to work, Falitico said.

Colleen Flynn, community relations director at United Memorial Medical Center, said the hopsital will search a little longer to find an applicant who understands the importance of customer service with patients and knows how to work well in a team environment.

"It's important that they have the skills necessary for the position, but it's really about the attitude and the right kind of personality to round out the team," Flynn said.

With the recent growth at UMMC, the hospital has been having a difficult time filling specialized positions such as clinical laboratory technologists. According to Flynn, college students are not majoring in that field as much and there is a significant amount of competition among employers. Other positions such as clinical analysts and registered nurse specialities are also hard to fill because qualified applicants often live in larger cities.

"In our region, it's much harder to recruit people to come to a rural county than if you live in a highly populated area like Buffalo or Rochester," Flynn said. "When you are the only hospital in the county, you have to work harder to attract workers because they typically are not already here."

One of the Career Center's goals is to make the county more attractive to families and students graduating from BOCES and Genesee Community College. The center is also working with the Genesee County Business Education Alliance to develop highly skilled jobs and promote occupations where there are shortages. 

In the future, Gage foresees the employer base and job market in county continuing to grow.

"Based on what I'm seeing and local committees who are continuing to develop the job market in Genesee County, I think we are well positioned to bring new opportunities to the area," Gage said. "The county is becoming really competitive with other areas in the state and even nationwide."

The unemployment rate for Genesee County hit a 100-month low for June, according to Department of Labor statistics.

The rate fell to 4.5 percent. The last time the rate was that low or lower was October 2007, when the rate stood at 4.2 percent.

The lowest rate of that year was 3.8 percent in August and in May.

A year ago, the June rate was 4.8 percent. It was 4.7 percent this May.

For June, there were 24,300 non-farm jobs in Genesee County, down from 24,600 in June 2015.  That June number is still the highest it's been so far in 2015, and with exception of last June, the highest it's been since July 2010.

Unemployment in Wyoming County is 4.9 percent, it's 6.1 in Orleans, and 5.3 in Livingston. In the Buffalo area, it's 5.3 percent and in the Rochester region, it's 5.1.

The number of people with jobs in Genesee County has improved, according to statistics released today by the state Department of Labor.

The sunnier employment picture for local residents comes a couple of weeks after a labor department report revealed that the county fell flat on in-county job growth in May, but the same jobs report showed an increase in the workforce in Monroe and Erie counties.

There are 300 more local residents with jobs now than there were a year ago, according to today's report. The total has climbed from 28,900 in May 2014 to 29,200 this May.

That puts the Genesee County unemployment rate at 4.7 percent, compared to 5.0 in May 2014.

The 4.7-percent rate is low, but not the lowest figure of the past 12 months. The rate was 4.6 in October. In the past 12 months it's been as high as 6.8 percent, which was the figure in January.

The unemployment rate in Wyoming County is 5.2 percent, down form 5.8 percent a year ago. In Orleans it's dropped from 7.0 to 6.2 and in Livingston, from 5.7 to 5.1.

The state rate is 5.3 percent and the national rate is 5.3.

Year-over-year job growth for Genesee County was stagnant in May, according to data released by the Department of Labor.

In May of 2014 and 2015, there were 23,900 jobs locally, according to the department's count.

The unchanged non-farm jobs number comes in a month that New York State as a whole added more than 142,000 jobs, jumping from 9.133 million jobs to 9.276 million jobs.

The Rochester area added 7,100 jobs and the Buffalo region added 13,000.

Wyoming County was also flat in jobs growth for May, holding steady at 13,500 jobs. The data for Livingston and Orleans counties are included in the Monroe County data.

Genesee County's unemployment rate dropped in April to 5.1 percent, according to Labor Department statistics released today.

That's down from 5.5 percent a year ago.

The last time April unemployment was lower was in 2007, when the local rate was 4.4 percent, though the rate has been lower in the past 12 months, when it was 4.8 in October.

The Department of Labor says that there are 28,400 residents of Genesee County with jobs, up 100 from the prior year. There are 1,500 people counted as unemployed, down 100 from a year ago.

The jobs data comes out a week after Scott Gage, director of the local job bureau said that his department currently lists 400 job openings and the number of employment seekers coming into his office is dwindling.

The unemployment rate in Wyoming County dropped from 6.6 percent to 5.8 percent, in Orleans from 7. 7 to 6.4, and in Livingston, from 5.6 to 5.2.

New York's rate is 5.5 and the national rate is 5.5.

Scott Gage, director of the Genesee County Job Development Center, has a simple message for anybody looking for a job or a better job: come on down.

There are currently 400 job openings listed with the career center and not nearly enough applicants to fill them, Gage said.

Yes, many of the jobs are entry-level production jobs, but they're good paying jobs, Gage said. There's also a number of professional-level jobs available.

The recession-era fear people had about taking a stab at a new job at a chance for career advancement or higher pay has disappeared, Gage said. More people are looking to move up, which helps create openings for other workers and it's also the sign of a strong local job market.

"There are not a lot of job seekers coming through our doors," Gage said.