Private sector employment in New York state increased 3.3 percent in August as the state’s unemployment rate held steady at 9.1 percent, after an abysmal July that saw the state’s private sector workforce shrink by 6.3 percent.
In Westchester County, unemployment was unchanged from July to August at 7.6 percent, but was significantly above the 6.8 percent mark from August 2011, according to data released Sept. 24 based on a U.S. Department of Labor telephone survey of 3,100 New York state households.
The disparity was likely caused by a significant increase in the county’s labor force over the past year. While there were 1,400 more Westchester residents employed in August than there were a year prior, the labor force ”“ which includes unemployed job seekers ”“ expanded by nearly 6,000, or 1.2 percent.
Because county-by-county data are not adjusted for seasonal fluctuations, year-to-year comparisons are more accurate in those cases, labor officials have said.
In the three-county region comprising Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties, private sector employers added 10,000 positions for the year ending in August, with the largest gains coming in the education and health services, professional and business services, and leisure and hospitality sectors.
The private sector hiring data, in contrast to the unemployment figures are determined through a payroll survey of 18,000 New York state employers conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor.
Bohdan Wynnyk, deputy director of research and statistics for the state Department of Labor, said in a statement that private sector employment has increased by 102,700 since the start of 2012, adding that New York is “among only five states in the nation to regain all of the jobs lost in the recession.”
He added that first-time unemployment insurance claims have fallen off significantly over the past year, with initial claims declining 10 percent from 106,818 in August 2011 to 96,334 in August 2012.
Despite the positive signs, the construction sector has continued to be a drag on the state and regional economy, labor officials said.
In the Hudson Valley, construction industry employment declined by 4,200, or 9 percent, for the year ending in August 2012, with 3,000 of those losses, or 71 percent, concentrated in the Westchester-Rockland-Putnam region.
“In August, the construction industry recorded its biggest over-the-year decline in employment since the depth of the recession in 2009,” said John Nelson, Labor Department market analyst for the Hudson Valley Region, in an email.
For the year ending in August in the three-county region, information sector employment expanded 9 percent, with the addition of 1,100 jobs; leisure and hospitality sector employment expanded 3.8 percent, with the addition of 2,100 jobs; education and health services sector employment expanded 3.8 percent, with the addition of 4,300 jobs; professional and business services sector employment expanded 3.8 percent, with the addition of 2,800 jobs; financial activities sector employment expanded 2.4 percent, with the addition of 800 jobs; and trade, transportation and utilities sector employment expanded 2 percent, with the addition of 2,100 jobs.
In addition to employment cuts in the construction industry, the manufacturing sector recorded 600 job cuts and the government sector registered 700 cuts over the past year.
