BUFFALO, N.Y. — The coronavirus pandemic has stripped Buffalo-Niagara of so many jobs that the region employs fewer people in the private sector than it has in at least 30 years.
The metro area was down 46,000 private sector jobs in September, compared with a year earlier. That amounts to a 9.6 percent drop. That leaves the labor market with 431,300 full- and part-time jobs.
“It’s the smallest private-sector workforce in 30 years, by a good deal,” said E.J. McMahon, senior fellow at the Empire Center for Public Policy, who conducted the jobs analysis for Investigative Post.