By G. SCOTT THOMAS
Business First

It could be worse.

The economic recession has certainly not been kind to Western New York, stripping away several thousand jobs, pushing the unemployment rate to heights not seen in more than two decades, and slamming the brakes on the housing market.

And yet, the impact has been far less severe in the Buffalo area than in many other parts of the country, a point dramatized by the latest quarterly statistics on employment and housing.

5,000: The number of private-sector jobs that slipped away from the Buffalo area between the fourth quarters of the past two years. Private-sector employment averaged 459,000 jobs in Erie and Niagara counties during the final three-month span of 2007, falling to 454,000 in the same period of 2008, according to a Business First analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

44: The number of U.S. markets that lost more private-sector jobs than the Buffalo area did in the past year.

6: The number of metros that lost more than 50,000 jobs between the fourth quarters of 2007 and 2008.

69,200: The decline in Detroit's private-sector job base between the ends of 2007 and 2008, the worst slippage in the Northeast-Midwest industrial belt. The severe problems besetting domestic automakers have harmed several markets, Buffalo included, but none worse than Detroit, the self-proclaimed Motor City.

72,900: The number of private-sector jobs lost by the Phoenix metropolitan area during the past year, the worst raw decline in any U.S. metro. Other major losers, besides Phoenix and Detroit, were Los Angeles (down 69,100 private-sector jobs), New York City (down 64,000), Atlanta (down 63,900) and Miami-Fort Lauderdale (down 58,300).

2: The Buffalo area's number of consecutive quarterly declines in private-sector employment. The second quarter of 2008 registered a gain of 800 jobs over the corresponding quarter in 2007, but that was the last positive news locally. The third quarter brought a year-to-year drop of 200 jobs, followed by the decline of 5,000 in the fourth quarter.

9: The number of U.S. markets that suffered at least eight straight quarterly losses of private-sector jobs through the end of 2008. Four Florida metros were included in those unhappy ranks: Daytona Beach, Lakeland, Melbourne and Sarasota.

32: The number of consecutive quarters in which Dayton lost jobs. Thirty-two quarters equals eight years. That means every quarter since the end of 2000 saw Dayton with fewer private-sector jobs than it had a year earlier.

0.8%: The increase in the value of a typical single-family home in the Buffalo area between the fourth quarters of 2007 and 2008, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

12.4%: The corresponding national decline in median home values during the same yearlong span.

$800: The raw gain since the end of 2007 in the price of a typical local home. The Buffalo area's median home value edged up from $105,400 to $106,200 during that period, based on NAR figures.

$25,600: The drop in value of a typical U.S. home since the onset of the recession. The nationwide median sales price fell from $205,700 in the fourth quarter of 2007 to $180,100 at the end of 2008.

10: The number of New York's 11 metros that saw their housing prices decline since 2007. Long Island suffered the worst drop, 17.4 percent during the past year. Upstate markets also experienced price declines, including Syracuse (down 9.7 percent), Rochester (down 6.9 percent) and Albany (down 3.6 percent). Buffalo's gain of 0.8 percent was the sole statewide exception.

14: The number of U.S. metros where housing prices fell more than 30 percent in the past year. The downward spiral was worst in California, which contained seven of the 14 depressed markets. The remainder were located in Florida (three metros), Michigan (two), Arizona (one) and Nevada (one).

50.8%: The decline in housing prices in the Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla., area during the past year, the worst drop in the nation. The median value of a single-family home in Cape Coral-Fort Myers plummeted from $225,300 at the end of 2007 to $110,900 in the fourth quarter of last year.