2010 – about 7 months after the official end of the recession – the country had lost almost 6. 5 percent of its jobs and the unemployment rate had more than doubled. many people lost their jobs or saw their hours or income cut, and the duration of unemployment for jobless workers reached a historical high. for many families, this distress was compounded by losses of wealth from declining home prices and stock market losses. since the jobs trough, unemployment has retreated by a percentage point and jobs growth has resumed, albeit at a slow pace. today, we will review questions about jobs in our region such as : how severe was the downturn? where are jobs returning? and, what factors affect the employment outlook? as in other parts of the country, employment in our region declined substantially during the recession. but, new york and new jersey and puerto rico had very different experiences. employment in much of new york state, including new york city, declined less severely than the nation. both the state and city lost about 3. 8 percent of their jobs. as we discussed at our briefing last october, part of reason for the more moderate decline in jobs in new york during the recession was a less pronounced boom - bust housing cycle. indeed, as a percentage, the city and state lost fewer jobs during this recession than they did during either of the last two downturns. by contrast, the downturn in employment in new jersey in the current cycle was more severe. about 250, 000 jobs were lost, or roughly 6. 0 percent of total state employment – about the same as in the country as a whole. this decline is comparable to the job losses during the most severe recent recession in the state, that of 1989 – 1992. fairfield county in connecticut, also part of our district, saw declines comparable to the nation, while puerto rico experienced much deeper and longer job declines than the nation. in fact, employment in puerto rico began declining nearly two years before the onset of the recession on the mainland. now, as in the nation, a labor market recovery has begun across much of the region. over the past year, the tri - state region added roughly 100, 000 private - sector jobs. within the region, however, the recovery has been somewhat uneven. new york city, upstate new york and fairfield county have been gaining jobs for more than a year now – at roughly the same pace as the nation. however, employment in new jersey has only begun to expand during the past few months.

particularly in asia – remains robust, supporting our exports. most importantly, the labor market has shown further improvement, as demonstrated by today ’ s employment report. although payroll employment growth has been subdued during most of this recovery, the latest figures show the economy added 244, 000 jobs in april – and an average of 233, 000 over each of the past three months. while the unemployment rate – which is based on a different survey – ticked higher last month to 9 per cent it is nonetheless 0. 8 percentage points lower than it was in november, a relatively rapid decline by historic standards. private - sector job growth has been strong enough to more than offset government layoffs, particularly at the state and local level. a particularly encouraging sign is the rapid growth of manufacturing jobs over the past year and the recent broadening strength in services employment. while the exact pace of a jobs market recovery is always hard to bis central bankers ’ speeches predict, we were expecting the rate of job growth to pick up over the first half, and i am hopeful that job growth will continue to strengthen in the coming months. we would welcome this. even if the economy added 300, 000 jobs per month from now on, we would likely still have considerable labor market slack at the end of 2012. despite these clearly encouraging signs, there are still some downside risks to the growth outlook that bear watching. let me list them for you : as i mentioned earlier, high oil and commodity prices have cut into household purchasing power, a difficult situation for many families that could constrain overall spending more than i anticipate. the renewed decline in home prices could dampen consumer spending and housing activity more than i expect. finally, aggressive near - term government spending cuts or tax increases could slow economic growth at least in the short - to medium - term – although a credible plan for medium - term fiscal consolidation is sorely required and would have many economic benefits. that said, i want to emphasize that these are risks rather than likely outcomes. in regard to inflation, on a year - over - year basis, the headline measures have increased to levels near those consistent with our objectives – which most members of the fomc consider to be 2 percent or a bit less on the personal consumption expenditures measure. moreover, the rise in commodity prices over the past year probably will push up headline inflation even further in coming months. it is noteworthy, however, that even with the sharp rise in oil and food prices, there has been little pass