POUGHKEEPSIE – While the population of the Hudson Valley continues to grow, there are not enough jobs in the region to go around. The Marist College Bureau of Economic Research Thursday released its report for 2007 and found that the labor force has grown, but at a faster pace than the number of new jobs, forcing more people to find work outside the region – people in Columbia and Greene counties are gravitating toward the Capital region and residents of the Lower Hudson Valley are finding jobs in New York City.

We are going to see more of an integration with New York City and therefore with New York City prices, and I think that is basically the future, unless there are monumental changes and I don’t know what they would be,” said Bureau Director Christy Huebner Caridi, who authored the report.

The report found that employment gains in the service sector compensated for the ongoing loss in manufacturing jobs, but service sector jobs are lower – 62 percent – than the average wages in manufacturing.

Across the region, the bureau found the cost of buying a home in rising faster than income. At year-end 2007, the average selling price of an existing home in the region was more than $601,000, or 126 percent above the national average, and more than 73 percent above the average for New York State.

Average wages ranged from a high of $58,000 in Westchester to $28,000 in Greene County. “The consequence of this mismatch between income and housing costs is increased outward migration – 28,653 households left the Hudson Valley since 2000, said Caridi.

The credit crisis is also impacting the housing market, she said.

Early indicators point to slower retail sales and an increase in commercial and consumer loan delinquencies in the Fed’s Second District, which includes the Hudson River Valley.

Early indications for 2008 are that the economy won’t get better, but in fact, may get worse, Caridi said.