September brought 14,900 new jobs and a revised August gain, but July's 21,900-job loss stands and layoff notices keep arriving. The next report lands Nov. 19.
New Jersey added 14,900 jobs in September, and August's reported loss of 1,700 became a revised gain of 1,200, figures from the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development show.
July's loss still stands at 21,900, revised from a first count of 25,600 that the department called "likely overstated."
In July, New Jersey was the only state with a statistically significant drop in payrolls, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.
Acting Labor Commissioner Kevin D. Jarvis said in a Sept. 3 television interview that "we anticipate that those numbers are going to be dramatically changed."
Professional and business services, the sector at the center of the department's July caveat, rebounded with a 7,100-job gain in September.
Explaining the July loss, a department spokesperson pointed to one part of that sector. "Most of the decline in professional and business services (PB&S) employment in July was due to unexpected seasonal declines in one of many PB&S sub-sectors. We expect the effect of the July seasonal decline will be offset when those seasonal workers return to work over the next few months," the spokesperson said.
Since August, employers from a food manufacturer in Elmwood Park to the company that runs the Sheraton Atlantic City Convention Center Hotel have filed layoff notices with the state, the department's public list shows.
The department says on its website that it has neither enforcement nor rulemaking power under the state's layoff-notice law, known as the WARN Act.
Unemployment fell again as revisions reshaped the payroll picture
The state's unemployment rate fell to 4.2 percent in September from 5.5 percent a year earlier, its ninth consecutive monthly decline, according to the department's Oct. 15 report.
New Jersey's 1.2-point decline from August 2025 was the largest of any state in the federal bureau's latest state report. The September comparison arrives Oct. 20.
Private education and health services added 30,000 jobs over the year to September, the department reported. Leisure and hospitality alone joined it in positive territory, up 2,400; every other private sector shrank.
A preliminary federal benchmark for March, months before the July drop, points the same way. The Bureau of Labor Statistics put New Jersey's March payroll count 27,600 jobs higher than its monthly survey estimate, though official numbers will not change until the final benchmark arrives in March 2027.
A department spokesperson called the federal estimate "encouraging" but said the department "reserves comment for the official annual benchmark release in early March 2027."
Benchmarks have cut the state's count before. In April, the department lowered its estimate of jobs added during 2025 to 5,100, from 9,000.
New Jersey also had the highest insured unemployment rate among the states, 2.1 percent in the week ending Sept. 12, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. That rate is the share of workers covered by unemployment insurance who are collecting benefits. The 90,103 people collecting that week were 3,158 fewer than a year earlier.
A department spokesperson said New Jersey has historically paid benefits to a larger portion of its jobless residents than most of the country. Its position at the top "is more indicative of the State's pro-worker UI program than the state of the NJ labor market," the spokesperson added.
In August, Senate Republican Leader Anthony M. Bucco said the July numbers were "a signal that job creators are waving the white flag," pointing to high taxes, rising costs and what he called "socialist policies."
Sean Higgins, Gov. Mikie Sherrill's chief spokesperson, answered by email: "President Trump's illegal tariffs have devastated job creators and inflation has skyrocketed from his reckless War in Iran."
Layoff notices since August reach from Elmwood Park to Atlantic City
The department's public list of notices prints no totals. Dr. Praeger's Sensible Foods LLC appears on the October list with 168 workers in Elmwood Park, effective Dec. 30.
The company said it would close the plant and shift its output "to a new facility in Kentucky operated by a trusted manufacturing partner."
Wonder Group Inc. told the state in September that it would lay off 533 workers between Sept. 16 and Jan. 8, 2027, listing its Parsippany address and sites in Cranford and Fairfield. Its notice cited "relocating operations outside current geo region" along with cuts across its corporate staff.
The company has said publicly that it is moving into "a new, higher-capacity facility in Swedesboro, New Jersey," and that the layoffs apply only to its production sites, with its office staying open.
The company that runs the Sheraton Atlantic City Convention Center Hotel told the state in September that it will cease operations there Dec. 15, affecting 91 workers.
LINY Investor LLC, the hotel's owner, is seeking state aid for a plan to convert some of its rooms into senior housing. Without that money, the owner has said, the Sheraton may shut down Dec. 15.
The law requires notice and severance and leaves enforcement to workers
Under the WARN Act, an employer with 100 or more workers must give at least 90 days' notice before a mass layoff or a closing. The notice goes to the state, the town's chief elected official, each affected worker and any union.
The law requires the employer to pay each laid-off worker one week of severance for every full year of work, and four more weeks if it gives short notice.
Enforcement falls to the workers. A laid-off employee can sue in state Superior Court. A court that finds a violation must award legal costs, including lawyers' fees, and damages, but the law caps the lost-wage portion at the severance it already requires.
The Department of Labor and Workforce Development's role, its website says, stops at dispatching its rapid response team and supplying the form employers use to file. That team offers workers facing a closing or mass layoff free help with unemployment claims, job referrals and training.
"The Department and Administration have not sought any changes to the law," a department spokesperson said, pointing to workers' existing right "to seek a remedy for a violation of the Act by filing a suit in Superior Court."
Among the filers is Fiserv Solutions LLC, approved for a state tax credit award tied to job creation. It filed notices in March and September for layoffs in Berkeley Heights, covering 118 and 98 workers, the state's list shows.
In September 2021, the board of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority approved a $109,229,575 Emerge tax credit award, spread over seven years, for Fiserv's project at 100 Connell Drive in Berkeley Heights. The board memo said the project would create about 1,927 new jobs.
The memo said the authority certifies Emerge credits each year in proportion to the jobs a company actually has. Cutting jobs, among other actions, can bring reduction, forfeiture or recapture of the credits.
The March notice covered the 100 Connell Drive site, according to a news report at the time.
The authority's allocation report as of March 2026 lists Fiserv's award among its fiscal 2022 Emerge awards and not among those withdrawn. Neither the authority nor Fiserv responded by the Oct. 9 deadline to requests for comment on whether the company has qualified for any of the credits.
The Assembly's economy committee met Oct. 5 for the first time since June
The Assembly Commerce and Economic Development Committee met Oct. 5 for the first time since June 4. A meeting set for Sept. 10 never took place.
Assembly Minority Whip Brian Bergen, a Republican on the committee, objected in a Sept. 9 letter to its chairman, Assemblyman William W. Spearman, a Democrat from the 5th District: "Cancel a meeting when there is nothing on the agenda. We have a state to fix. Put something on the agenda."
Speakers from business and trade groups and the South Jersey Transportation Authority addressed the Oct. 5 session, which had no bills before it, the committee's record shows.
Thomas Bracken, president and chief executive of the New Jersey State Chamber of Commerce, told a member that the administration is researching an economic plan that business groups are still waiting for. "But right now we have not seen that plan and we've been waiting nine months for that plan," he said.
Bergen told the committee that Speaker Craig J. Coughlin and Senate President Nicholas P. Scutari, both Democrats, are "the only two people who set the agenda for items that go through to get passed as legislation."
Coughlin's Garden State Manufacturing Jobs Act has seen no action in the committee since its referral Jan. 13, legislative records show.
Near the hearing's end, Bergen called it "useless," adding that "nothing that we heard here today is going to actually happen."
Spearman closed by saying the testimony should lead to new bills or rule changes. "So I understand your skepticism. I get it. But I'd like to prove you wrong," he said.
The state labor department's next report, due Nov. 19, will carry a first estimate for October and a revised figure for September. The Bureau of Labor Statistics follows with its state-by-state release Oct. 20.
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Photo: Wikimedia Commons (public domain)