Belatedly, the recession clobbers Phila.

Philadelphia's job market, which appeared floridly healthy through much of the recession, has weakened suddenly this year as city employers in many different industries have cut an estimated 16,400 jobs.

The city had been insulated from the harshest effects of the slumping economy by its huge medical and educational institutions, which employ more than one-third of Philadelphia's 639,100 workers.

But those buffers, along with a skyline and condo prices that have risen markedly since the last recession, have provided little protection in the first half of this year.

Paul Levy, president of the Center City District, a nonprofit economic-development organization, said some of the most painful job cutbacks had come at white-collar workplaces such as architectural and law firms as they eliminated younger employees. One of Philadelphia's top law firms - Wolf, Block, Schorr & Solis-Cohen L.L.P. - disbanded earlier this year.

Philadelphia appears to be a microcosm of the national story of accelerated payroll declines at this late stage of the recession, Levy said.

"You bet it's not good," he said, "but we are at the point when we are no different than the rest of the national economy, and we're doing better than our neighbors."

The most recent job figures from the federal government estimate that the 16,400 lost jobs between July 2008 and July 2009 represented 2.5 percent of the city's job base.

The Pennsylvania and South Jersey suburbs - a seven-county region - lost 63,600 jobs, or about 3.5 percent of their base in same period.

The best gauge of the city and suburban job markets is year-over-year comparisons published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Through late 2008, those data showed minimal job losses in Philadelphia, a remarkable accomplishment for an old industrial East Coast city. But December figures showed a loss of 5,000 jobs, and by May the loss had deepened to 18,200. There was a slight improvement between May and July, but the overall trend is down.

Richard Voith, a senior vice president at Econsult Inc. and former regional economist at the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank, said the recent job cutbacks in the city were "scary and worrisome. It's only been in the last six or seven months that we've been hit."

Philadelphia's sagging job market poses a difficult dilemma for Mayor Nutter, who has to close a city budget deficit.

The accelerated job losses could represent more than $900 million in wages, based on an average annual wage in the city of $56,800. The city collects wage taxes for its operating expenses.

City mayors plugged budget holes in years past with higher business taxes, and companies responded by fleeing to the suburbs - a dynamic that battered the Philadelphia economy in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Uri Monson, executive director of the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority, a watchdog agency established after the city's 1990s near-bankruptcy, said he was watching the situation closely, but remained confident because Philadelphia was doing well in comparison with other big metropolitan areas.

Philadelphia had a 10.5 percent unemployment rate in July, the latest figure available - higher than the U.S. average unemployment rate of 9.7 percent, which was announced Friday. Philadelphia's jobless rate in December was just 8.1 percent, and its annual average for 2008 was 7.2 percent.

A sampling of other U.S. counties with large cities for July seems to indicate that Philadelphia's jobless rate is comparable to, or better than, its peers. Los Angeles County's unemployment rate in July was 12.5 percent; Wayne County, Mich., which includes Detroit, was 19 percent; Cook County, Ill., which includes Chicago, was 11 percent; and Cuyahoga County, Ohio, which includes Cleveland, was 9.5 percent.

Chester County had the lowest rate in the Philadelphia region, at 6.6 percent.

Monson said he believed Philadelphia's job base was more secure with health care and education employers than it was in the past with cyclical manufacturers. Hospitals, medical offices, and private schools were the only businesses to boost employment, by 2,100 jobs, in the July year-over-year comparison.

But reforms to the health-care industry proposed by President Obama could potentially hurt Philadelphia hospitals.

Philadelphia's specialized and technology-focused health-care sector could face restructuring as preventive and general-practice disciplines are emphasized, said Mark V. Pauly, a health-care expert at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Monson said that despite the job losses, wage-tax collections had held up because, government reports show, those people with jobs in the city were getting paid more.

Philadelphia also is benefiting from a luxury-condo dividend. Suburban executives bought some of those condos and now that they live in the city, they pay the city wage tax.

"Somebody bought all those million-dollar condos. They may not be worth a million dollars, but people are living in them," Monson said.

The latest job losses, though less than the suburbs, are part of a long-term fade for the Philadelphia economy. The city has shed about 8 percent of its payrolls since 2001, or 53,600 jobs.

Both the Pennsylvania and South Jersey suburbs have lost jobs in the current recession, but over the longer term they squeezed out positive growth since the last recession, in 2001.

Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery Counties added about 19,100 jobs between July 2001 and July 2009, a 1.6 percent gain over those years, according to government figures.

The South Jersey economy - Burlington, Camden, and Gloucester Counties - gained 5,300 jobs between 2001 and 2009, or 1 percent.

Philadelphia has a more competitive posture with taxes - former Mayor Ed Rendell began a series of highly popular cuts to the wage tax in the 1990s - and suburban construction is not dirt cheap anymore. These two factors should help Philadelphia's job prospects in the future, said Econsult's Voith. But, he added, "we're not there yet. We're not over the hump."

For The Inquirer's continuing series on the impact of unemployment on the region: http://go.philly.com/jobbingEndText