Regional Employment Improves

January 15, 2014

Buffalo, NY – The national economy may finally have deviated from its slow growth path as third quarter real GDP growth came in at 4.1% in its final revision. The unemployment rate has been reduced to 7% and payroll employment continues its steady growth but remains 1.29 million jobs below its January 2008 pre-recession peak. The Federal Reserve announced on December 18 that it will begin the tapering process from its asset purchasing program.

Locally, an increase in private sector employment has brought total employment back above pre-2008 recession levels. Indeed, employment in the Buffalo MSA now is back to 2001 levels, a feat that had not been accomplished before the onset of theGreat Recession. While the Buffalo region has rarely recovered more quickly, or as fully, as the rest of the nation following recent recessions, it appears that the region trailed the nation into the last recession, did not fall as deeply and began its recovery earlier that the rest of the country.

Click here to read the entire January 2014 issue of Western New York Economic News.

One of 28 Catholic, Jesuit universities in the nation, Canisius is the premier private university in Western New York.