Local labor/business coalition says Allegheny County has lost 50,000 jobs in last 5 years
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — A local labor and business coalition reports Allegheny County has lost 50,000 jobs in the last five years.
But as KDKA-TV money editor Jon Delano reports, not everyone thinks the situation is as bad as it sounds.
Pittsburgh Works Together, a coalition of business and labor organizations, says both state and federal statistics confirm the job loss in this region is staggering, worse than any other county in Pennsylvania.
"Allegheny County has lost in the neighborhood of 50,000 jobs over the past five years," said Jeff Nobers, executive director of Pittsburgh Works Together.
Nobers said what's most troubling is the comparison to other regions.
"When you look at Pennsylvania as a whole or the Philadelphia area or many other metro areas of the state, they all had growth," he said. "They had positive numbers."
Allegheny County not only lost jobs but lost twice as many jobs as Cuyahoga County, home to Cleveland, which was the worst-performing county in Ohio.
Delano: "Is it as bleak as that headline sounds?"
PNC Chief Economist Gus Faucher: "I don't think so. I think we lost more jobs during the pandemic. We gained back a lot of those jobs, not all of those jobs, but other parts of the country took similar hits."
Faucher said this region was hurt by covid. But the real question is what we do to regain growth. He says we need to do more to keep local talent in Pittsburgh.
"We have enormous resources in our local colleges and universities," Faucher said. "They bring in people from all over the country and people from all over the world. These are very skilled and highly sought-after young people, so the more we can do to keep these people in the area, that will attract employers. And that, in turn, will attract more people."
Another solution, says Faucher, is attracting more legal immigrants to this region because part of the population loss is the result of an older population passing away.
"Allegheny County, in fact, is the largest core county in the country that now has more deaths than births," he said.
Pittsburgh Works Together says its report is important because voters this year will pick a new county executive who must be focused on job creation. The primary is in just six weeks.