LI jobless rate dips; fewer workers, jobs
Dorothy Balboa, 66, of Melville, became unemployed when her company outsourced her job. She hopes to find work on the Island. (Jan. 24, 2012) Credit: Jessica Rotkiewicz
Long Island's unemployment rate edged down to 6.9 percent in December, compared with 7 percent a year ago, the state labor department said Tuesday.
Generally a decline in the jobless rate signals good news for an economy, but that continues not to be the case for Long Island. The rate remains stuck at recessionary levels, as it has been for the past three years. When the last recession began in December 2007, the Island's unemployment rate was 4 percent, and it had dipped to as low as 3.3 percent earlier that year.
While the unemployment rate inched down last month, the number of employed workers also declined. The Island now has 1.34 million employed people, down from 1.36 million the year before. Paradoxically, the number of unemployed also declined. The Island had 99,500 unemployed people, compared with 102,200 the year before.
And last week, the department reported that the Island had 9,900 fewer jobs in December than it did the year before, the eighth straight month of year-over-year lower readings.
The statistics reflect, in part, that more people have given up looking for work. Those are "discouraged workers," who aren't included in unemployment statistics.
"Some of the decline in the unemployment rate is certainly that people are giving up and leaving the labor force," said Marisa Di Natale, a Pennsylvania-based economist with Moody's Analytics who follows the local economy.
Shital Patel, a labor market analyst in the labor department's Hicksville office, concurred, but she said other reasons for a shrinking labor force include population loss and retirements.
Melville resident Dorothy Balboa, 66, is among the newly unemployed. She lost her job as a benefits administrator after 21 years when the Melville health insurance company she worked for outsourced her entire department to a company in Manhattan. She said she could have applied for a job at the Manhattan company, but the pay would have been 10 percent to 15 percent less and her benefits would have been cut. The lower pay, coupled with the cost of riding the train daily and her age, made commuting to Manhattan an unattractive option.
"I hope to find something on Long Island," she said. "But I would never earn what I was earning."
Of the local municipalities, Hempstead Village had the highest jobless rate, at 9.9 percent. Rockville Centre's 5.6 percent was the lowest.
New York State's unemployment rate was 8 percent in December, unchanged from a year ago. As on the local level, the year-to-year comparisons aren't seasonally adjusted.
