Nassau Unemployment Rate Sits at 6.8 Percent, Hempstead Town Sees Small Dip

Nassau County's unemployment rate remained at 6.8 percent in October, as it has for the past three months, according to statistics released Thursday by the New York State Department of Labor.

The county unemployment rate was 7 percent a year ago.

The Town of Hempstead unemployment rate for August was 7.1 percent, a drop from 7.3 percent the year prior. The unemployment rate had been as low as 6.7 percent in April and as high as 7.9 percent in February.

"You have to keep in mind that this is the official unemployment rate. There is another unemployment rate that includes people who are working part-time involuntarily because they can't find a full-time job, and there are the so-called discouraged workers who stopped looking for work because they couldn't find a job," said Dr. Pearl Kamer, chief economist for the Long Island Association.

The statewide unemployment rate has remained flat at 8 percent since September, however it is down .2 percent from August.

"The overall report is pretty positive. The numbers track fairly closely to the national data," said Gary Huth, regional analyst for the New York State Department of Labor. "We're doing better than the national economy. It's slow but improving. There does appear to be some degree of certainty of the viability of recovery. But the speed of the recovery is a little slower that we'd like to see." 

New York State's labor market regained some of the momentum it lost earlier this year, adding 40,500 private sector jobs in October – the most since April 2005, according to Norman A. Steele, deputy director of the labor department's division of research and statistics.

On Long Island, there are 10,900 more jobs than there were last October.

"We are growing at a rate of 1.1 percent a year," Huth said. "It's not gangbusters, certainly, but it's significantly better than it was earlier."

President Chris Brown said businesses in the community are still recovering from the recession and are not in hiring mode yet.

"It is going to take awhile before everything bounces back," he added. 

Huth said there is usually some increased hiring in retail trade, though this month it's unchanged. Wholesale trade saw a big jump while financial services seems to be lagging. "It's down 1,500 jobs compared to a year ago ... A year ago it was at the bottom of the sector. It was one of the hardest hit. There has been improvement," he said of financial services, adding that healthcare and education has done well.

Sen. Kemp Hannon R-Garden City, joined members of the Senate Republican Conference in announcing a major new jobs initiative this year. "The loss of jobs across the state is a top priority for New Yorkers, and thus, the creation of jobs must be a top priority on our legislative agenda," he said. 

Designed to improve the state's business climate, reduce taxes and create thousands of new jobs for workers across the state, Hannon said the plan's centerpiece would reward businesses with a three-year tax credit averaging between $2,500 and $5,000 for every new job created, eliminate taxes for small businesses and manufacturers that pay New York's corporate franchise tax and roll back the income tax surcharge placed on them last year by the budget and place a moratorium on new taxes, fees and regulations that are "killing" private sector job-creation efforts.

Hannon's proposal, however, was never adopted. He believes the plan is "crucial for the people of New York."

Labor force statistics, including the unemployment rate, for New York and every other state are based on statistical regression models specified by the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.