Pittsburgh region’s economy remains slow to recover from pandemic downturn

The Pittsburgh region’s economy continues to lag behind its pre-covid levels from 2020, when there were 64,000 more nonfarm jobs in the seven counties and 54,600 more people in the labor force, according to the February employment report released Tuesday.

“It may take us years to get back to pre-pandemic levels. We’re struggling to get employment back to those levels,” said economist Frank Gamrat, executive director of the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy, a think tank based in Castle Shannon.

A bright spot in the February report was the 0.2 of a percentage point drop in the unemployment rate to 4.9%, slightly above the 4.6% rate for February 2020 for Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Washington and Westmoreland counties. The jobless rate takes into account seasonal hiring factors.

While the region’s economy added 8,400 jobs in February to reach 1.112 million jobs, which is 30,000 more than one year ago, the increase is typical for February, said Chris Briem, regional economist for the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Social & Urban Research.

The lingering impact of the covid pandemic remains the reason for the decrease in the number of those working or seeking work, which has been a constant since the pandemic restrictions took hold of the economy in March 2020. The statistics from the state’s Center for Workforce Information and Analysis shows 1.213 million people in the labor force in February 2020, compared to only 1.158 million this February.

“There is no reason to think there will be a snapback to pre-covid levels,” Briem said.

Employers have struggled to fill the vacancies in the workplace, “despite the fact that wages have gone up tremendously,” Gamrat said.

Speculation remains that older workers took early retirement when covid ran rampant and some younger workers have yet to return. The demographics of the region have played a role in that imbalance, because there are simply not enough younger workers to enter the job market compared to the number of workers age 50 and older who left it, Gamrat said.

Although labor force issues have been a national problem since the pandemic, the Pittsburgh region’s labor force is recovering at a slower rate than other similar regions, Briem said.

“This is a long-term issue,” Briem said.