Unemployment rates for Westchester County and the Hudson Valley improved last month from a year before, but preliminary data from the state Department of Labor showed slight upticks in unemployment from May to June.
In Westchetser, Rockland and Orange counties, the unemployment rate for June ranged between 4.6 percent and 4.8 percent. The three-county area has seen its unemployment rate drop from an average of 5.1 percent in June 2014 to 4.7 percent, but there has been little progress on that front in the last few months.
From May to June this year, the unemployment rates in Westchester and Orange counties remained stagnant at 4.6 percent and 4.8 percent, respectively, while the jobless rate in Rockland County rose by 0.1 percent, to 4.7 percent. In June 2014, the jobless rate was 5 percent in Westchester and Rockland, and 5.4 percent in Orange.
Putnam County’s unemployment rate, the lowest in the Hudson Valley, dropped by 0.4 percent from June 2014, down to 4.4 percent, but experienced a slight increase from May to June, rising 0.1 percent.
Statewide
The referenced counties have some of the lowest unemployment rates in New York, which has a statewide unemployment rate in tow with the national rate of 5.3 percent, not seasonally adjusted.
Columbia County has the lowest unemployment rate in the state at 3.95 percent, a stark contrast with Bronx County’s unemployment rate of 7.8 percent ”” the highest in the state.
According to the Labor Department, the private sector job count increased statewide by 173,500 from June 2014 to June 2015, rising to an all-time high of 7,804,200.
In addition, between May and June this year, the state”™s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate decreased from 5.7 percent to 5.5 percent ”” its lowest level since July 2008.
See a map of unemployment rates by county here.
Looking north
In the Hudson Valley counties of Sullivan, Ulster and Dutchess, similar unemployment patterns persist.
Year over year, the unemployment rate in Dutchess County dropped to 4.7 percent in June from 5.3 percent, though it rose by 0.1 percent from May.
Ulster’s unemployment rate decreased to 4.8 percent from 5.6 percent June-to-June, but like Westchester, the jobless rate did not change from May
Sullivan County has also seen a large drop in the unemployment rate, to 5.2 percent in June 2015 from 6.2 percent the previous June, and bucked the trend of a stagnant or slightly increased unemployment rate from May to June with a 0.3 percent drop.
