Rochester, NY has reason to celebrate this week. The Paychex/IHS Small Business Jobs Index released a report that shows the job index for the area — a calculation that analyzes a region’s economic growth — has made its most impressive jump in over two years, according to Businesswire.
“With a gain of 0.36 percent in the first quarter of 2016, the national index indicates a solid expansion of small business jobs,” said James Diffley, chief regional economist at IHS.
In essence, Rochester is doing extraordinarily well on the jobs creation front. The growth is almost on pace with some mountain region cities, which have been the fastest growing sectors for employment since they surpassed Dallas, TX a few years ago.
One of the reasons for Rochester’s solid employment standing is the surge of minority-owned businesses in the area.
New York, in particular, is known nationwide as a bastion of diversity and acceptance, a designation which seems earned, considering that jobs are not only on the rise, but according to Bizjournals.com, African-American owned businesses are more common in Rochester than almost anywhere else in the country.
Some analysts question whether or not the growth is significant, as Rochester residents still face numerous economic hardships as a city.
In fact, some are skeptical that the growth is even real. Jaison Abel and Richard Deitz, two writers for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, claimed on their blog Liberty Street Economics that the growth was more than likely perceived, and wasn’t actually supported by data they’d had access to.
“Annual benchmark revisions to New York State’s employment data released in early March cut upstate’s growth rate in half,” they wrote on the blog. “Indicating that the pickup in the pace of the region’s job growth never really happened.”
Experts like Abel and Deitz determine the value of businesses by valuing recent sales, earning power of the business, and how they assess risk.
Whichever dataset you put your faith in, Rochestarians still have a lot to be proud of as a city. Share your thoughts below.
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