##ages between individual sectors of the economy and, even more so, between large financial institutions. there are some important areas of the financial sector where we lack complete statistical coverage, especially relating to what we call the “ shadow banking system ”. these areas include some complex market products and instruments. similarly, our new responsibilities in european banking supervision call for new data concepts and definitions, greatly extending the need for granular data. a successful start has been made, with a new set of legal acts. the collection of loan - by - loan data is already being implemented, but further improvements are possible. in particular, we need to make sure that the data we collect are of a high quality and comparable. bis central bankers ’ speeches effective data integration and cooperation but today ’ s conference is about more than just collecting additional data. the sharing of data by authorities is also critical. doing this effectively and efficiently, while maintaining data confidentiality, is a priority for policymakers. it requires action from policy institutions and lawmakers. putting in place the right architecture will permit a faster and more efficient response to requests across all our policy areas, greatly enhancing the usefulness of granular data. we have made some progress on the legal foundations for sharing granular data. council regulation 2533 / 98 has been amended to permit the ecb to ( re ) use confidential statistical information to perform its supervisory tasks. the information can also be shared with union institutions, including supervisory and resolution authorities, the european systemic risk board and the european stability mechanism for the purposes of prudential supervision and ensuring financial stability. this is a major achievement. the european system of central banks ( escb ) has also taken important steps to improve the harmonisation and standardisation of data. the current work on the banks ’ integrated reporting dictionary, a joint project involving seven national central banks and 26 commercial banks under the leadership of the ecb, is the best example. this process could and should ultimately enable us to organise the various reporting requirements into a single, comprehensive and harmonised european reporting framework. but the need for harmonisation and standardisation also extends beyond europe. finance is a global business, and both the regulation and the underlying data requirements for global institutions would benefit from more harmonisation worldwide. concrete steps towards standardisation include the establishment of mandatory requirements regarding the use of the international securities identification number and the global legal entity identifier. europe should retain its prominent role in the implementation of the second phase of the g20 data gaps initiative.

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.