New York City’s Jobless Rate Drops Below 10% - NYTimes.com

New York City’s Jobless Rate Drops Below 10% - NYTimes.com:
"City’s Jobless Rate Drops Below U.S. Rate
By PATRICK McGEEHAN
Published: May 20, 2010
The number of private-sector jobs in the city rose by 21,000 in April, nearly triple the average increase for that month in the last 10 years, said Colleen C. Gardner, the state’s labor commissioner.
The growth was widespread, with increases in all industries, but was especially strong in professional and business services and in leisure and hospitality, Ms. Gardner said.
For the city, the unemployment rate was 9.8 percent in April, down from 10 percent in March and a recent high of 10.5 percent at the end of 2009.
It is now lower than the national unemployment rate, which was 9.9 percent in April, for the first time since late summer 2009.
New York State’s unemployment rate also fell in April, declining to 8.4 percent, from the March rate of 8.6 percent.
...
Those employers that are hiring still have the leverage in negotiations over pay. According to data compiled by James A. Parrott, chief economist for the nonprofit Fiscal Policy Institute, the average wage of workers in the city, outside of the financial sector, declined almost 5 percent last year. Wages declined in 7 of the 10 biggest sectors of the city’s economy, he said. "


These numbers appear to be nothing more than statistical juggling. New York has "created" jobs that pay less than the jobs that it "lost" a few months ago, a swap over time, with a net decrease in salary. That's not growth, it's substituting pay scales, downwards.