LI's jobless rate falls to 3.4%, indicating broad return to labor force

Long Island’s unemployment rate fell to 3.4% last month, a sign that more jobless Long Islanders and those who had been on the sidelines of the labor market found work in March, state data shows.

Unemployment was down substantially from the same time last year, when the jobless rate was 5.6%, and down slightly from February when the rate was 3.7%, the state Labor Department reported Tuesday.

“Overall this is a really good report,” said Shital Patel, labor market analyst with the Labor Department’s Hicksville office. “Long Island’s unemployment rate fell to 3.4% in March, which is the lowest level for the month of March since 2001.”

The Island’s labor force — the total of all employed residents and those looking for work — increased last month to 1.5 million from 1.48 million in February and 1.47 million in March 2021, the state said.

The region’s count of employed Long Islanders has grown. while the number of jobless residents has fallen.

The Island recorded 1.45 million employed residents in March, the second-highest on record for the month after March 2019 when a record 1.46 million had jobs. The number of unemployed fell to 50,900 in March from 54,300 in February and 82,500 in March 2021, state data shows. 

Patel said it’s likely that higher pay rates combined with the rising cost of living may be luring some back into the job market.

And while it’s hard to know which Long Islanders reentered the labor market without local demographic information, national figures may provide some clues.

“The national report showed that a large number of women came back to the labor force and also a large number of retirees are returning to the labor force,” Patel said.

Women were especially hard hit by school closures earlier in the pandemic, leading many to leave jobs and become stay-at-home moms..

“Looking at this data, the labor market is back,” said John Rizzo, economist and professor at Stony Brook University. “This reflects the indirect strength of Long Island’s economy and labor market.”

But Rizzo said several external factors — namely inflation, supply chain delays and the geopolitical crisis in Ukraine — pose the risk of derailing the progress.

“Those factors will determine if this good news continues or not,” Rizzo said.

The municipalities on the Island with the lowest and highest unemployment rates last month were Smithtown at 2.7% and Hempstead Village at 5.3%, respectively.