NYC securities workforce down to September 2005 level

By Joan Gralla

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City's securities companies shed 16,000 employees in October, measured on a year-over-year basis, pushing the total work force down to a level last seen September 2005, a state labor analyst said on Thursday.

"They're showing a big year-over-year loss and are going to go on showing big year-over-the year losses," labor market analyst James Brown said on Thursday by telephone. October's work force totaled 171,400 positions, just 300 more employees than in September 2005.

The drumbeat of layoffs in the financial sector kept up on Thursday, with JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) slicing about 3,000 jobs in investment banking, according to sources familiar with the situation. Bank of New York Mellon Corp (BK.N) said it will cut its global work force by 4 percent, or 1,800 jobs.

The city's construction industry, which typically slows during winter, is starting to lose workers earlier than usual, posting its first year-over-year loss of 200 employees, the labor analyst said.

Weakness in two other economically sensitive areas -- trade and leisure and hospitality -- point to a bleak Christmas season, when the city has grown accustomed to raking in extra tax dollars from local and overseas visitors.

The jobless rates for New York City and New York state both slipped one-tenth of a percentage point to 5.7 percent.

However, the labor department dismissed this in a statement as a "statistically insignificant" decline, citing another worrying sign -- private sector employment fell over the year for the first time since January 2004.