Experts see several positives in the August unemployment rate for the Scranton\/Wilkes-Barre metropolitan area, but also pointed out some causes for concern.<\/p>\n
As the rate dipped one-tenth of a percentage point from July to 4.6%, Satyajit Ghosh, Ph.D., a University of Scranton economist, said the growing labor force coupled with a large employment increase and drop in unemployment bodes well for the region\u2019s economy. The rate dropped five-tenths of a percentage point from August 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe combination is always important,\u201d Ghosh said. \u201cYou can see unemployment falling because of what\u2019s happening in the labor force when maybe we don\u2019t see too much job creation. Here the labor force actually went up quite a bit. We are making a dent on the pool of unemployed. That\u2019s a good sign.\u201d<\/p>\n
Specifically, the number of unemployed decreased by 300 from July to 13,000 \u2014 down 1,100 over the year. The number of employed workers increased by 700 over the month and 6,300 over the year to 270,400 \u2014 a record high, said Lauren Riegel, a state industry and business analyst.<\/p>\n
The local labor force \u2014 the estimated number of residents working or looking for work \u2014 rose by 400 over the month and 5,200 over the year, Riegel said.<\/p>\n
Lackawanna County\u2019s unemployment rate dropped two-tenths of a percentage point to 3.6% in August \u2014 down 1.2 percentage points from August 2025, state experts said.<\/p>\n
The rate for Luzerne County dropped two-tenths of a percentage point to 4.4% down in August \u2014 a decrease of 1 percentage point from last August, according to state data.<\/p>\n
Total nonfarm jobs decreased by 300 over the month to 267,600, but are up by 1,300 from August 2025, per state data.<\/p>\n
The sectors that saw the biggest increases over the year were leisure and hospitality, which added 1,000 jobs, and healthcare and social assistance, which added 900, Ghosh said.<\/p>\n
The Scranton\/Wilkes-Barre region reached a record high for jobs in the leisure and hospitality section in June and July with 24,800, Riegel said.<\/p>\n
The state\u2019s unemployment rate was down two-tenths of a percentage point over the month to 3.7% in August, the lowest rate since May 2024, according to state data. The nation\u2019s unemployment rate was unchanged in August at 4.1%.<\/p>\n
Locally, employment reached a record high in August at 270,400, Riegel said.<\/p>\n
Previously the record was 269,400 in 2008, and again in 2024.<\/p>\n
The number of unemployed also keeps trending in the right direction as the all-time low for the region was 12,100 in June through August 2023.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though it\u2019s not a record low, it\u2019s historically a very low level,\u201d Riegel said.<\/p>\n
There are several aspects of the unemployment report worth monitoring in the coming months, Ghosh said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe one thing that kind of bothers me if you look at between July and August, total nonfarm jobs went down by 300 because the gains are coming from elsewhere,\u201d he said. \u201cHealthcare and social assistance worries me \u2026 there is no change between July and August. That\u2019s something we need to keep an eye on. That\u2019s one of the biggest (sectors) that contributed to gains from last year to this year. After seeing what happens to these patterns in the next couple months, we will have a better sense of which way the labor market may be going.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Experts see several positives in the August unemployment rate for the Scranton\/Wilkes-Barre metropolitan area, but also pointed out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[60,201,182,803,28,30,29,181],"class_list":["post-296362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-business","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-luzerne-county","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-top-stories-stt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}