What the latest job numbers show about the Lehigh Valley economy

Job seekers browse near a company display during The Morning Call’s Career Fair in 2015 at Coca-Cola Park. The Career Fair returns to the Lehigh Valley IronPigs’ home baseball stadium from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Tuesday.

More people are going to work in the Lehigh Valley as the region continues to put up record numbers for employment.

The state Department of Labor & Industry’s April numbers for the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton Metropolitan Statistical Area, which were released last week, showed that the Valley had a record number of seasonally adjusted total nonfarm jobs. The 397,500 jobs represented an increase of 700 from March and 5,800 — or 1.5% — over April 2023 , when it was 391,700. It surpassed the state jobs’ rate of change of 1.3%.

“The Lehigh Valley’s growing economy is creating jobs for anyone who wants one,” said Don Cunningham, president and CEO of Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp. “This is very encouraging. The first indicator of a successful region is an economy that’s providing opportunity for all people of all education and skill levels from the professional office to the manufacturing floor and beyond.”

Steven Zellers, an analyst with Labor & Industry, said those job numbers have been mostly on the rise since the fall, setting records almost every month.

“Since November, there have been record highs virtually every month,” Zellers said. “Last November was a record high. Last December was a record high. January there was no change over the month. We had a new high in February, a new high in March. And of course, April is higher again.”

The unemployment rate for the metropolitan statistical area, which includes Carbon County, remained at 3.6%, unchanged over the month and the year. It’s only slightly higher than the Valley record of 3.5% set in May 2023.

Zellers pointed out the labor force in the Valley has also been steadily on the upswing, with 463,400 workers in April, an increase of 6,900 over the year. Employment was at 446,800, a jump of 6,500 since April 2023. There were 16,700 unemployed, only 500 more than last year.

In nonfarm job sectors, which are not seasonally adjusted, the professional and technical services category was at a record 17,400.

“Those are your surveyors and engineers,” Zellers said. “That’s a good thing because that kind of employment in general is considered a lagging indicator, but when you have professional services that mainly service other businesses, when they’re doing better that speaks well of the underlying economy. In other words, all the other businesses are doing generally well because they can afford to hire more people with professional and business services. That speaks well to projects coming.”

Also at a record high was education and health services, which increased by 5,400 over the year to 89,900. Broken down, hospitals were at a new high of 24,000.

Trade, transportation and utilities — which includes such things as warehousing — was down 1,400 over the year to 91,400.

“For you guys in the Lehigh Valley, the logistics section has always been a big driver in years past,” Zellers said. “The last 18 months or so have been declining, but that is not necessarily an Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton thing. That’s a Pennsylvania trend. Part of that stems from way back during the pandemic era.

“Everybody grew so much and jumped on the bandwagon, everybody ordered e-commerce, and all that has kind of settled out.”

Zellers said the industry has been right-sizing across the country and companies such as FedEx have been removing overcapacity in their systems.

“Obviously it’s going down, but that’s a trend,” he said, “but not a negative for the A-B-E so to speak. It’s just you’re stuck in the same boat as everybody else.”

Morning Call reporter Evan Jones can be reached at ejones@mcall.com.