Long Island loses jobs 7th month in row

Long Island had 8,600 fewer jobs last month than a year ago, the seventh consecutive month of year-over-year declines.

The largest number of jobs were lost in areas such as education and categories including leisure, arts, hotels and restaurants, the state Department of Labor said Thursday.

Still, it was an improvement over October, when the year-to-year decline was 11,000. "It's better news than we had last month," said Michael Crowell, senior economist in Labor's Hicksville office. October "was really the pits, quite bad news."

The Island showed employment gains in health care, social assistance, retailing and certain other sectors.

Jobs losses were especially heavy in education, and particularly at public school districts. "We've been seeing this for some months," said economist Pearl Kamer of the Long Island Association, a business group, "and I think the process has a long way to go as school districts try to lower their costs." The private education sector lost 2,400 jobs or 6.7 percent of the total a year earlier -- apparently at private colleges and parochial schools, Kamer said.

In total, Nassau and Suffolk had 1,241,800 jobs last month.

The November figures show the biggest increase from a year earlier -- 5,100 jobs -- in the health care and social assistance field. Retailing gained 3,600 jobs from a year ago.

The employment picture was brighter almost everywhere else in the state, the department reported. New York City had 23,500 more jobs than a year earlier, while other downstate suburban Rockland, Westchester and Putnam counties also had a collective net gain in jobs.

Statewide, there were 34,400 more jobs in November than a year earlier. But the unemployment rate ticked up from 7.9 percent to 8 percent, the labor department said. Crowell attributed those seemingly contradictory figures to previously discouraged unemployed workers beginning to look for jobs again; unemployed people not looking for work aren't included in the unemployment rate.

Local jobless figures for November won't be released until next week. Long Island's unemployment rate fell to 6.6 percent in October from 7 percent a year earlier -- reflecting, said Crowell, discouraged workers remaining on the sidelines.

Nationally, the number of people applying for jobless benefits fell last week to 366,000, the fewest since May 2008, the government said. If the number stayed that low consistently, it would likely signal that hiring is strong enough to lower unemployment. -- With AP