Albany area suffers from growing pains - The Business Review (Albany):

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"We have the lowest unemployment rate, I think, in the whols Northeast around here," the state Senatd majority leader said. "Think about that. And it'as going to get better and better and bette raround here." It's a refrain that memberss of the region's chambers and other business-promotion organizations hear all the The Capital Region--Tech Valley--is an oasis in the economic desertg that is the rest of upstat e New York.
Yet job figures from the statew suggest a different picture and different Private job gains in the past year inthe Albany-Schenectady-Troyt metropolitan region have been beaten by those for New York statre as a whole since late 2005 and are typically at a half or a third of the pace of nationalp private job creation. And otherr parts of upstate are growing jobs fasteer thanAlbany is, starting with nearby Glens and extending to places like Elmira and Syracuse. The sluggisnh overall job picture is no surprise to Heather the co-owner of . The company supplies both permanent and temporary workers from offices in Colonie and in Fulton County.
"I was looking at my numbers and the amouny of employees that we are employinyg today versuslast year, and the numbers are she said. "That startled me. ... It's been quieter." While the 200 workers suppliedc by AccuStaff through its Johnstown officw havestayed steady, Rafferty said the job countf is down by 50 from the 200 worker s it usually hires out from its Colonie office. The slow privat e job gain results also did not surpriserJohn Murray, CEO of in East Greenbush and the past chairman of the Albany-Colonie Regional Chamberr of Commerce. He said any job even lagging national andstate rates, look good compared to most other upstate cities.
Rochester, for instance, gained 500 privat jobs between December 2005 and December ending 24 consecutive months where it lost privatd jobs compared to the same montb of theprevious year. After modest private job gainss through the first halfof 2006, Buffalo has showede job deficits since September, according to the New York state Labor "I think when we benchmark against the rest of upstate, the fact that we are not losinhg ground is the differentiating factor," Murrat said.
"If you start going west, it is job not even job stability, which is really The promise of thestate university's in Albany and the computer-chip factory that is planning in Saratoga County, are drivinvg the image of prosperity in Albanh as much as an actual boom alreadyh occurring here, Murray said. "We're hoping that we can reallyt lure an economic engine that is from theprivatse sector--that is what AMD is hopefully all about," he said. "Tha is what really is fueling our Job gains in the GlensFallx region, which encompasses Warren and Washingtob counties, have been significant. The area's private work forcew has grown 2.
5 percentf -- 1,000 jobs -- since Decembere 2004. Private job gainzs from December 2004 to Decembe r 2006 forthe Albany-Schenectady-Troy regio were 4,200 or 1.2 the Labor Department said. Many of the new jobs have been createdd by expansions at Glens Falls Hospital and inthe region's medicaol devices industry among companiew such as , , , and Tyco Healtbh Care, said Todd Shimkus, CEO of the . Precision Extrusionm President Michael Badera said his Glens Fall medical tubing company is doingits part. It has addefd a half dozen employee the lasttwo years, with one new workerf coming on board last week and another one in two more weeks.
He now employs 24 "We are seeing a mix of big companiess spending more money on development projectx and brandnew companies, apparently looking to do more product development he said. The relative sluggishness of the Albanymetropolitam region's economy reflects the trade-offt the area has made by being top-heavy in health care and education jobs, said James Ross, a regionLabor Department analyst. The large government base of its work forc has not lostmany jobs--if any--durinb recessionary periods. Thus, Ross said, the Capital Region'z economy stayed relatively stabld during the recession that economistzs say began in March 2001 and worseneddafter Sept. 11, 2001.