Well, it’s official: 2012 was a good year for employment in the Savannah metro area.
Of course, while last year was a good year for local jobs, it wasn’t good enough to make up for all the bad years preceding it.
If it didn’t feel like a good year, you might work in one of the fields that is lagging the recovery such as construction or financial activities.
Or you might be one of many jobseekers who can’t get your resume noticed in a crowded field of applicants.
Or you might be getting pinched by several years of stagnant wages.
Or you might have adopted the deep cynicism encouraged by some media outlets and doomsaying politicians.
If you fall into the last camp, it’s also likely you will simply reject the economic data released by the Georgia Department of Labor and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But keep in mind that those agencies are staffed by career civil servants from across the political spectrum. They’ve been using the same methodology for many years, in good times and bad, to produce monthly estimates of employment and unemployment.
The data are often confusing, however, because officials conduct two different surveys each month. Employment is tracked by surveying establishments with payrolls. The unemployment rate and other details about the labor force are estimated from a survey of households.
The two surveys don’t always seem in sync, and the household survey is especially noisy month to month. That survey also uses a broader definition of the word “job” and counts workers that the payroll survey will miss.
But over time the two surveys give us a good picture of job growth and unemployment.
According to December payroll data released by the Georgia Department of Labor two weeks ago, the Savannah metro area (Chatham, Effingham and Bryan counties) added 5,100 nonfarm payroll jobs in 2012. That’s an increase of 3.4 percent, more than twice as fast as population growth.
Private-sector employment was up 3.8 percent in December compared to a year earlier.
The gains were particularly pronounced in the final months of the year, with December showing an annualized rate of 6 percent job growth.
The sectors that lagged were predictable ones: construction, financial activities and government.
Just a few days ago, the Georgia Department of Labor released details from the household survey. That survey always shows a higher level of employment because it might include folks who don’t show up on payrolls — unpaid interns, the self-employed, folks working off the books and so forth.
The local unemployment rate in December jumped to 8.2 percent from 7.7 percent in November. But an increase was to be expected because of a variety of seasonal factors.
More importantly, the Savannah metro unemployment rate was down half a point from December 2011.
That’s a solid decline, but it misses some of the vitality of the local job market last year.
The number of area residents reporting themselves as being employed increased by 3.9 percent in December compared to a year earlier. That’s even better than the payroll estimates.
And the civilian labor force — the combined number of all those both employed and unemployed — grew by 3.3 percent last year. Again, that’s considerably faster than the rate of population growth.
Many of us have been expecting a rebound in the labor force participation rate as the economy recovers. With hiring picking up, some discouraged jobseekers will start looking more actively.
By the way, in many parts of Georgia, the growth in the civilian labor force did not keep pace with population growth in 2012. I’m not sure whether to see that as good news for us or bad news for other areas.
Employment is considered a lagging indicator of economic activity. Employers are generally slow to fire when times are bad and slow to hire when times are getting better.
So the surge in commercial investment in recent months will likely yield some strong employment estimates at least through the spring.
In a few weeks, we’ll get some numbers for January, and they’ll look bad. January is a lousy month for employment, even during boom times.
So don’t be fooled by expected seasonal patterns. The Georgia Department of Labor adjusts most of its statewide estimates for seasonality, but that’s not done at the local level.
And don’t be fooled by all the doom and gloom on Facebook or on some media outlets.
Yes, we’re still struggling through a long recovery from a deep recession and perilous financial crisis, but Savannah’s job market is improving steadily after several years of decline and stagnation.
City Talk appears every Tuesday and Sunday. Bill Dawers can be reached via billdawers@comcast.net and http://www.billdawers.com. Send mail to 10 East 32nd St., Savannah, GA 31401.