New Jersey job woes to persist to 2019, Rutgers says

New Jersey, with its jobless rate at a 32-year high, will take a decade to get back to pre-recession employment levels, according to economists at Rutgers University.

The most densely populated U.S. state will take until 2019 before the number of people in work surpasses the 2007 peak, said Nancy Mantell, director of the Rutgers Economic Advisory Service.

“The country, in contrast, will begin job expansion three years earlier,” Mantell said in a statement.

New Jersey entered recession in January 2008, one month after the U.S., and has lost 161,300 jobs, or 4 percent of its employment base, Mantell said.

The New Jersey jobless rate was 9.8 percent in September, up from 4.5 in December 2007, according to data compiled by the State Department of Labor and Workforce Development.