Another Warning Sign for NJ’s Economy: Private Sector Job Losses

Understanding NJ’s economy requires multiple reports that, even as a whole, would not give you a full and real picture; this is true for the slices that make it up- one being employment.

We’ve been covering unemployment rates and WARN notices in NJ; this week we’ll take a look at two reports from the feds which show a labor market that’s uneven, stressed but holding it together – sort of.

The Business Employment Dynamics in New Jersey report measures the currents running underneath the labor market – private sector job gains and losses from businesses that are opening their doors or expanding and those that are contracting or locking their doors for good.

For New Jersey the movement you see in the 3Q 2025 report (published May, 2026) is going in the wrong direction. From June 2025 to September 2025 (again private sector) the state economy saw a little over 196,000 gross job gains from businesses that started out or expanded. That number was more than offset by about 212,000 job losses from businesses that were shrinking or shutting down. That’s a loss of nearly 17,000 jobs.

In the 11 sectors BLS looked at, 8 reported gross job losses were greater than the gains with Leisure and Hospitality showing the biggest hit showing a loss of 9,444 jobs and Professional and business services losing 8,472 jobs. Transportation and warehousing had the largest net gain, adding 3,209 jobs while education and health services added 2,949 jobs.

The second report – Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment (also published in May) includes New Jersey-specific metro areas and divisions. In March 2026, New Jersey’s not-seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate was 4.7%, down from 5.2% one year before (March 2025). Atlantic City-Hammonton was at 7.5% (a significant drop from 8.5% the year prior), Trenton-Princeton was at 4.6% and Vineland was at 7.7%.

The same report also shows variation within larger regional labor markets. The Lakewood-New Brunswick metro division had a March 2026 unemployment rate of 4.5%, down from 5.0% in March 2025. Newark was at 4.9%, down from 5.4% a year earlier.

BLS also specifically noted that the largest unemployment-rate declines among metro divisions from March 2025 occurred in Lakewood-New Brunswick and Newark, both down 0.5 percentage point.

So while the unemployment side improved the private sector churn went the opposite direction

An interesting data point was Atlantic City-Hammonton which stood out nationally for payroll growth- it was tied for one of the largest over-the-year percentage gains in (nonfarm) employment, at 3.5%.

So it’s a mixed story – regional and uneven with a good deal of churn underneath what might seem like a placid headline number.

As we’ve been saying for nearly a year – no red lights but definitely an orange glow.

Source Data (zip)