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Pluses and minuses

 

To borrow from former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, who used to ask, “How’m I doing,” we ask: How are we doing?

“We” is the lower Hudson Valley. And the answer is a little elusive.

The statistics offered up by the New York state Department of Labor can be a bit beguiling; but as with any thing of beauty it is always best to look below the surface before embracing it.

The region generally ended the year on a slightly higher note than when it started in regard to the number of unemployed. The percent of unemployed in December in Putnam was 3.3 percent; Westchester, 3.7; Rockland, 3.8; Dutchess, 3.9; Orange, 4.2; and Ulster, 4.3. However, all of the counties had higher unemployment rates than they did in December 2006; some as much as eight-tenths of a percentage point.

Contractions, the bureaucratic way of saying job loss, outpaced expansions in the lower Hudson Valley as best as we can determine by the statistics available from the Labor Department with Westchester taking the brunt of the losses.

February was a bad month for Westchester as The Bank of New York laid off 292 workers in Harrison. Coca-Cola was also to lay off workers but did not supply numbers. The month of May proved worse as the subprime mortgage hydra reared the first of its many economic debilitating heads. ACC Capital Holdings, the parent of Argent Mortgage Co. shut down its offices, leaving some 600 workers unemployed. Ocean First Financial Corp., another subprime mortgage lender, followed with about 40 layoffs. Freemont Investment & Loan came next with 169 firings.

The subprime ripple crossed the Hudson into Rockland in June when WMC-GEMB Mortgage Corp. let go 171 workers. Forth & Towne, a fashion store at the Palisades Center closed, leaving 115 without jobs during the same month.

IBM delivered bad news in July to Dutchess when it jettisoned 300. Stop & Shop Supermarket closed its Middletown store, laying off 109.

In September, IBM let go 43 from its help-desk unit in Dutchess. About 100 more mortgage workers were laid off in Westchester as Countrywide Financial shuddered under the growing weight of missed payments.

Feintool Group, a small manufacturer with 20 workers, pulled up stakes in White Plains and headed to Cincinnati in October.

Things got worse for WMC-GEMB Mortgage Corp. in November as it let go another 150 workers.

December was bad for Westchester again as Cadbury Schweppes let go 150 from its Rye Brook operations, EMD Chemicals laid off 65 and about a total of 145 were let go from Sound Shore Medical Center and Mount Vernon Hospital.

And, early last month, this newspaper reported that Rye Brook-based Blue Sky Studios was ready to take off for Greenwich, Conn.

And we’re sure other business comings and goings have gone under the radar.

OK, so where’s the plus side, there’s always something positive. And there is.

ITT is expanding and adding 96 people over the next five years to its headquarters in White Plains. The Residences at The Ritz-Carlton opened and added dozens of service-industry jobs. Ridge Hill broke ground in Yonkers with the promise of bringing a phenomenal 4,000 new jobs. A-Val Architectural Metal Corp. moved from Queens to Mount Vernon with 180 jobs. Advanced Coatings Technology is adding 80 in Wallkill. Hunter Douglas moved 115 from New Jersey to Orangetown.

Perhaps the biggest news of last year was the takeover of Stewart International Airport by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the catalyst needed to push the airport from being on the cusp to actually becoming a major economic engine for the region.

So, as to how we’re doing business-wise, we’d have to say “not bad” in comparison with the rest of the nation.

However, the subrprime mortgage problems will remain for a while as the numbers from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York show foreclosure rates on the rise especially for the region’s cities. Poughkeepsie, Middletown, Mount Vernon, Yonkers, White Plains and New Rochelle are showing foreclosure rates running about 10 percent.

To head off an ever-growing crisis, Gov. Eliot Spitzer near the end of his State of the State address said the state should not let residents struggle in the crisis.

“New York alone cannot solve a problem of this scale – one created by unscrupulous lenders and a massive federal regulatory failure. But we can continue to press banks to agree to mass modification of loans.”

He said he would send a bill to the Legislature that amends state foreclosure law to add more protections for homeowners.

We can back that just as long as no state money is added to help those who didn’t do their due diligence and got in over their heads.

As the lower Hudson Valley continues to balance itself on this tightwire of an economy, we would hope economic development agencies press even harder in attracting business to our region and hold those businesses to their respective words when they promise to create x-number of jobs. Incentives are important, but perhaps a contract should be written that if a company fails to meet the benchmark, then clawbacks will be initiated.

 

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