In Mayor Bill de Blasio’s first month in office, New York City’s unemployment rate continued its long, gradual decline, falling below 8 percent for the first time in five years.þþBut the city’s rate, which dropped to 7.8 percent in January, is still significantly higher than the nation’s, and more than 100,000 residents of the state have lost their extended unemployment benefits before they could find jobs, the State Labor Department reported on Thursday. Lawmakers in Washington did not renew the extended benefits that had been available to the long-term unemployed since the depths of the last recession.þþThe report from the Labor Department provided the first look at the condition of the New York City labor market in 2014. It included the annual revision of past data, which reduced the unemployment rate for December to 8 percent, from the 8.1 percent rate that the department originally reported. The last time the city recorded an official unemployment rate of less than 8 percent was in January 2009, just as the financial crisis was taking hold.þþThe monthly jobs survey that accompanies the unemployment report showed that the city shed fewer jobs in January than it normally does that month. Certain types of employers, including stores, hotels and restaurants, usually take on additional workers before the year-end holidays and lay them off when business cools in the new year.þþAll told, the city lost about 77,000 jobs in January, much less than the 10-year average loss of about 100,000 in the first month of the year, said Elena Volovelsky, an economist with the Labor Department. But after accounting for the usual seasonal fluctuations, that loss translated to a gain of about 22,000 jobs in January, according to Barbara Byrne Denham, an independent economist who adjusts the city numbers to be comparable with those for the state and nation.þþEvery industry other than the government added jobs in January, on a seasonally adjusted basis, Ms. Denham said. But even with a slight gain, Wall Street still employed fewer people than it did at the end of 2012, she said.þþ“Wall Street is not adding jobs,” Ms. Denham said. “It’s just in one of the longest, most protracted slumps in that industry since the Great Depression.”þþThe Labor Department said that the number of jobs in the city surpassed 4 million for the first time in January, and that employment in the state was at a record high of 7.53 million jobs.þþMs. Volovelsky said the cold and snowy weather did not have a marked effect on employment. “It probably had some effect, but it’s hard to measure,” she said.þþStatewide, there was a slight loss of jobs, on a seasonally adjusted basis. The state lost about 1,400 jobs, but many of those that were eliminated came from government. About 5,400 private jobs were added in January, while the statewide unemployment rate fell to 6.8 percent, from 7 percent in December.þþThe unemployment rate does not account for all residents who are out of work, only those who tried to find jobs. It also does not reflect how many people are collecting unemployment insurance payments. Those benefits normally go to people for up to 26 weeks after the loss of a job. But in hard times when new jobs are scarce, the federal government offers additional benefits. At one point in the last recession, some people were eligible to collect unemployment payments for 99 weeks.þþBut by early January, fewer than 190,000 state residents were collecting regular unemployment benefits. The Labor Department said the expiration of extended benefits at the end of 2013 “impacted 102,700 state residents,” or about one-eighth of the 1.3 million Americans who lost their extended benefits.þþThe national unemployment rate for January was 6.6 percent. The federal Labor Department is scheduled to release national figures for February on Friday morning.
Source: NY Times
