Pittsburgh’s ‘eco­nom­ic dol­drums’ per­sist despite low unem­ploy­ment

(The Cen­ter Square ) — Penn­syl­va­nia has strug­gled to reverse pop­u­la­tion loss­es in much of the state – this despite its low unem­ploy­ment rate.
Labor-force par­tic­i­pa­tion rates have dropped, and the over­all effect has been for “employ­ment dol­drums” to set in, as one pol­i­cy group argues.
For Pitts­burgh, the news is more dire.
“Job gains in the state, region and city are weak, espe­cial­ly over the last four years,” Jake Haulk, pres­i­dent-emer­i­tus of the Alleghe­ny Insti­tute for Pub­lic Pol­i­cy, wrote in a recen …