The Hudson Valley’s private sector job count increased 1.4 percent for the 12-month period ending August 2012 as employers added 10,700 jobs, the state Department of Labor reported yesterday.
Employment gains were strongest in the education and health services sector, which added 5,000 jobs over the past year, the professional and business services sector, which added 3,700 jobs, and the trade, transportation and utilities sector, which added 3,500 jobs.
The overall numbers continued to be muted by cuts in the natural resources, mining and construction sector, which lost 4,200 jobs over the past year, the manufacturing sector, which lost 1,500 jobs, and the government sector, which lost 500 jobs.
Statewide, the unemployment rate was unchanged from July at 9.1 percent, and came in significantly above the rate from a year ago, when unemployment stood at 8.3 percent.
August unemployment data for the state’s regions and counties will be released Sept. 25.
John Nelson, Labor Department market analyst for the Hudson Valley, said in an email that job losses in the construction sector “have remained a concern.”
“In August, the construction industry recorded its biggest over the year decline in employment since the depth of the recession in 2009,” Nelson wrote. “The sector has continued to reel from the collapse of the housing market.”
Notably, 3,000 of the 4,200 construction job cuts in the Hudson Valley were concentrated in the three-county region comprising Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties.
For the three counties, employment in the natural resources, mining and construction sector contracted by 8.9 percent from August 2011 to August 2012.
