NEWARK-While unemployment remains low, and business' output remains high, there are some cracks in New Jersey's economic picture, according to a panel of economists at the Newark Regional Business Partnership's regional economic outlook meeting here yesterday. The story begins with slow employment growth.

Prefacing his remarks by explaining that New Jersey in the past quarter century had transformed itself from a failing manufacturing economy to a knowledge-based powerhouse, James Hughes, dean of Rutgers' Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy told attendees that, “some of our neighbors are pulling away in employment growth. Employment growth has slowed dramatically in New Jersey.”

Hughes also pointed to a larger issue, borne out in a recent report he co-authored, which indicates that overall population growth has slowed as well. “New Jersey may show an actual decline in population as early as 2008.”