8/19/2019 Asbury Park Press front page Friday, March 25 2016

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New Jersey’s job market last yearmade it back to square one. It recoveredthe 257,900 jobs that it lost in the GreatRecession. Its unemployment ratedropped to 4.3 percent, back to where itwas in 2007. And Gov. Chris Christietook a bow.

So why are so many so glum?“I worked at a company for 18 years,” said Edward

Kertesz, 54, of Woodbridge, who lost his finance job

last August. “You work your (tail) off, you do a realgood job, what does the company turn around and do?They outsource our whole department to another com-pany.”

New Jersey’s job market recovered from thedepths of the Great Recession, adding both high- andlow-paying jobs in 2015, even in sectors that had strug-gled mightily to gain ground. Its struggling financialactivities industry added 8,300 jobs. Its struggling

construction industry added 6,300 jobs. Even its strug-gling manufacturing industry stopped a long slide and

“New Jersey’s not in great shape. To me, you can’t claim

success right now because there’s a lot more for us to do.

Until we get, year after year, the kind of growth we looked at

in 2015, I don’t think we can claim victory.”

TOM BRACKEN PRESIDENT OF THE NEW JERSEY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

JOBS RISEAND FALL

New Jersey’s unemployment rate has fallen to its lowest levelsince August 2007. So why are so many workers unhappy?

See JOBS, Page 4A

ROCKOF AGESFormer Def Leppard and

Stone Temple

Pilots members

form new band.

jerseyalive!

ASBURY PARK PRESS APP.COM $1.50

FRIDAY 03.25.16

VOLUME137

NUMBER 73

SINCE 1879

ADVICE JERSEY ALIVE

CLASSIFIED 4D

COMICS JERSEY ALIVE

LOCAL 3A

MOVIES JERSEY ALIVE

OBITUARIES 11A

OPINION 14A

SPORTS 1C

WEATHER 8C

YOUR MONEY 10A

Comedian Garry Shandling,of ‘Larry Sanders’ fame, dies

at age 66. STORY, 6B

JACKSON – From the top of the Nitro roller coaster

400 feet in the air, Six Flags Great Adventure visitorsmay soon glimpse a sea of solar panels tucked into apocket of preserved forest.

After nearly a year of protests and outcry from resi-dents and environmentalists, the Planning Board hasgiven Six Flags and KDC Solar LLC its blessing to clear-cut nearly 15,000 trees on an undeveloped piece of parkproperty, where a 21-megawatt solar farm is to be built.

To a Wednesday night crowd of nearly 50 people,many wearing white stickers reading “don’t kill theEarth to save it,” it was a disappointment.

“This gives green energy a black eye. You cannot cutdown a forest for solar panels. That’s the opposite of be-ing green,” said Jeff Tittel, executive director of the Si-erra Club of New Jersey, one of the groups formally ob-

Six Flags’ planfor solar farmgets go-aheadJackson Planning Board OKs proposal

that includes clear-cutting of trees

MIKE DAVIS @BYMIKEDAVIS

THOMAS P. COSTELLO/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Six Flags Great Adventure plans to clear-cut trees on thisundeveloped piece of park property to build a solar farm.

See SOLAR, Page 4A

TOMS RIVER – For $146.50 apiece, two formerLakewood High School football players traded the pros-pect of college athletic scholarships for lengthy termsin juvenile lockups for committing a series of armedrobberies in 2014.

Superior Court Judge Wendel E. Daniels on Thurs-day sentenced one of the former football players, Has-san Diawara, now 17, to 12 years in the custody of thestate Juvenile Justice Commission for robbing six peo-ple in four separate holdups in Toms River and Lake-wood in the fall of 2014.

Daniels sentenced former football player Christo-pher Perpignan, now 18, the wheel man for the robberyspree, to six years in the custody of the Juvenile JusticeCommission for his role.

Ex-Lakewood H.S.football playersget prison termsKATHLEEN HOPKINS @KHOPKINSAPP

See SENTENCES, Page12A

May2015

+15,600

Feb.2016

-8,600

Jan.2016

-15,700

Nov.2015

+9,000

Dec.2015

+12,400

Oct.2015

+19,800

Sept.2015

+3,000

Aug.2015

+2,700

July2015

+4,300

June2015

+3,500

A LOOK AT THE JOBGROWTH IN NEW JERSEY

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MICHAEL L. DIAMOND

IN THE MONEY 

Head to the Stone Pony Sunday, April 10, for a rare treat:The Preservation Hall Jazz Band and the Tangiers BlueBand with Danny Clinch. Visit APMFF.com for details.

Get your tickets now!

Enjoy a nightof Orleans jazz