ALBANY – A year after declaring that New York should create a million new jobs by the end of the decade, it is apparent that Governor Pataki has gotten off to a slow start.

Employment across the state is growing for the first time since the summer of 2001, but at less than half the national rate – and at less than a third of the pace necessary to reach the 1 million mark by 2010.

As of November, total employment in New York was up 53,000 for 2004, to 8.6 million, according to figures from the state Labor Department. That 0.6% increase compared with a 1.6% rise in the number of jobs nationally during that same period.

The requirement to meet Mr. Pataki’s target would be an addition of an average of 167,000 jobs a year for the next six years.

The ambitious job-creation goal was the centerpiece of the Republican governor’s 10th State of the State speech last January.

To improve the economy, Mr. Pataki called for offering new tax breaks to manufacturers and biotechnology companies, subsidizing job training and high-tech research, and reducing the cost of workers’ compensation insurance.

However, the Legislature spent most of the year debating other issues, such as education funding, and ignored or rejected most components of the governor’s economic plan.

The governor is likely to revive some of his proposals on Wednesday, when he delivers his 11th annual message to the Legislature.

Business leaders, who had welcomed Mr. Pataki’s emphasis on improving the business climate, expressed disappointment that so little has changed in the 12 months since the last speech.

“It’s obviously still early, but clearly we’re not making the progress we need to be making to meet the goal,” the research director of the Business Council’s Public Policy Institute, Robert Ward, said on Friday. “The goal is an excellent one, an important one. … And it’s hard to point to anything that is moving us significantly closer to the more competitive business climate we need if we’re going to meet the goal.”

A fiscal policy analyst with the Manhattan Institute, E.J. McMahon, pointed out that creating a million jobs in six years would mean surpassing the level of growth New York experienced during the boom of the 1990s.

“There needs to be a concerted effort across the board to attack those things that make New York an expensive place to hire people,” Mr. McMahon said. “It requires some really sweeping changes in state policy to actually make it happen.”

Economic conditions upstate are bleak enough that the population in some areas is shrinking, he noted.

“It would be helpful if we were no longer losing people,” Mr. McMahon said. “Jobs are not created when there aren’t people to fill them.”

He recommended lowering taxes across the board, removing mandates and surcharges that add to the cost of health insurance and electric power, and dramatically reducing the cost of workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance. Instead, he said, Mr. Pataki is recommending targeted tax breaks, limited subsidies for power and health care, and modest changes in workers’ compensation.

“It’s not about overall climate change,” he said. “It’s about a basement full of lights and chemical trays with seed in them.”

A spokeswoman for the governor, Jennifer Meicht, acknowledged that many of Mr. Pataki’s economic proposals from last year have not been accomplished.

For example, the Legislature simply extended the Empire Zones program, which offers extensive tax breaks to businesses in certain locations, rather than following Mr. Pataki’s proposal to overhaul it. They also rejected his legislation to reduce taxes on manufacturers, to offer new tax breaks for biotechnology companies, and to control the cost of workers’ compensation insurance, which covers on-the-job injuries.

Ms. Meicht noted, however, that one of the governor’s priorities – expanding the Javits Convention Center on the West Side of Manhattan – was approved by the Legislature last month, and that the governor implemented some of his other plans by executive order.

“The governor continues to be focused each and every day on creating and retaining good, high-paying jobs for New Yorkers,” she said. “And we’re confident that we will meet or exceed our ambitious goal.”

The state’s economy grew by 862,000 jobs, or 11%, between 1992, the low point of a recession, and 2000, the peak of a boom. After that, New York lost about 200,000 jobs because of a bear market on Wall Street, a nationwide recession, and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

To meet Mr. Pataki’s goal, the number of jobs in New York would have to grow by 12% over six years.

Mr. McMahon said he hopes Mr. Pataki restates his goal in this year’s State of the State speech and calls for even more sweeping economic changes.

“Would they be a heavy lift? Absolutely,” he said. “But if he was to frame the agenda compellingly he would at least put the Legislature on the spot.”