Pittsburgh region jobless rate drops slightly as end to unemployment supplement looms

The Pittsburgh region’s jobless rate dropped slightly in July, falling to 6.2%, the lowest rate this year and less than half of the jobless rate a year ago, the state reported this week.

The unemployment rate for the seven-county region fell 0.1 of a percentage point in July, based on seasonal hiring factors. The Pittsburgh region’s jobless rate in the pandemic-impacted economy of July 2020 was 13.5%, according to the state’s Center for Workforce Information and Analysis.

The jobless rates for Allegheny and Westmoreland counties both rose by 0.1 of a percentage point in July — to 5.8% in Allegheny and 6.1% in Westmoreland.

“In July, it looks like it started to pick up a little momentum,” Frank Gamrat, executive director of the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy, said of the region’s economy.

Although the number of nonfarm jobs fell in July by 7,700 to 1.23 million as educational institutions shed jobs for the summer, Gamrat noted that July figure is 4.7% more than a year ago.

The number of employed workers within the seven counties — Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Washington and Westmoreland counties — increased by 1,200 in July to 1.08 million, but that figure has been relatively flat, Chris Briem, regional economist for the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Social and Urban Research, said of the seasonally-adjusted employment figure.

“There’s very little movement since last fall,” Briem said.

A lagging statistic for the region’s economy remained the number of people in the labor force — those working and looking for work — was 1.185 million, which was about 6,900 more than in June, but about 26,000 fewer than a year ago.

“I am a little bit worried. I expected to see more people in the labor force,” Gamrat said.

The ranks of the unemployed shrunk to 71,900, which was 700 fewer than in June, but close to 90,000 less than July 2020. Allegheny County had 36,400 unemployed workers, while Westmoreland had 10,600 in July.

With so many businesses advertising for workers, “they are not looking for jobs,” Gamrat said

The state instituted requirements in mid-July that those unemployed workers had to prove they were looking for work to continue to receive unemployment benefits.

The full impact of the end of the federal government’s $300 a week supplement to unemployment benefits as of Sept. 4 likely will not be known until November, when the September jobs report for the Pittsburgh region is released by the state, Gamrat said.

“It will be very interesting to see what happens in September,” once the unemployed are no longer receiving the extra federal benefits, Gamrat said.

Allegheny County had 9,330 unemployed workers filing jobless claims as of Aug. 21, while Westmoreland County had 3,740.