ALBANY -- Job growth in New York has lagged far behind the national average for the last decade, with the upstate region generating jobs at barely a third the norm, according to a new report.

From 1995 until last year, jobs in New York grew 8.7 percent, compared with the national figure of 14.1 percent, according to a report from the research arm of the state Business Council.

The report points out that in 2004, New Yorkers paid more in state and local taxes, $5,260 per person, than any other Americans. That f igure was 53 percent above the national norm of $3,447.

Ward said other costs, including energy, health insurance, workers' compensation and liability insurance, are also among the highest in the country and need to be reduced for the state's job picture to improve.

Another report released Friday, this one from the labor-backed Fiscal Policy Institute, found that the number of manufacturing jobs slipped by almost 23 percent between 2000 and 2005, compared with a decline of 17.6 percent nationally.

"The upstate metropolitan areas in central and western New York, which saw only tepid growth during the late 1990s expansion, have been socked with the steep 25 percent decline in manufacturing jobs since 2000," said Frank Mauro of the institute.

"The economic travails of central and western New York have been compounded by suburban sprawl and state fiscal policies that have pushed up local property taxes and severely strained local government budgets, hindering upstate's recovery," he said.

The Fiscal Policy Institute report contained a sliver of good news: The productivity of New York's manufacturing workers has been increasing faster than the national average since 1997.

James Parrot, an institute economist, said that is likely due to the fact that many low-skilled manufacturing jobs are gone, and the ones that remain are highly productive.

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