I just got home and received the monthly e-mail from the New York State Department of Labor. During the annual re-benchmarking process, during which employment statistics for the past are adjusted based on more detailed data that has become available, New York City private employment was adjusted upward by a stunning amount. In fact, if the data holds up to later adjustments, annual average private wage and salary employment in the city would have been within 12,000 jobs of the all time peak in 1969. (Including the self-employed, that peak was passed some time ago).
Which just goes to show what I have come to believe. New York City's economy is no longer very dependent on Wall Street. It is New York's tax base, and the extent to which city and state residents are socked with tax increases and service cuts, that is dependent on Wall Street.
The rest of the country is not due until March 23rd. But in many parts of the country, the household-based survey that generates the unemployment rate has shown far larger job gains than the establishment data. When the recession hit, the household-based data was showing larger losses, and the establishment data was later revised to show greater losses as well.
Well see if my expectation eventually comes true — more jobs at lower inflation adjusted wages — as the U.S. adjusts to the collapse of its consumer debt driven economy and cannot afford as many imports anymore.