11/8/14

New York Citys Unemployment Rate Fell to 6.8% in September - NYTimes.com

http://nyti.ms/1phK8mQ

N.Y. / REGION

New York Citys Unemployment Rate Fell to

6.8% in September
By PATRICK McGEEHAN

OCT. 16, 2014

New York Citys unemployment rate took an unusually steep fall for the
second straight month, dropping to 6.8 percent in September, its lowest
level in nearly six years, the State Labor Department reported on
Thursday.
In just two months, the citys official unemployment rate has declined
by a full percentage point, a descent that has brought it much closer to the
national unemployment rate of 5.9 percent. Through July, the citys rate
had remained high despite steady increases in the number of jobs. The
jobless rate for August was 7.3 percent.
Now it is more consistent with the strong growth in private-sector
employment in the city, said Elena Volovelsky, an economist with the
Labor Department. Over the past year, the number of jobs in the citys
private industry has risen by about 95,000, or 2.8 percent.
The tally of jobs is derived from a monthly survey of employers, while
the unemployment rate is calculated from a separate survey of residents.
(Only those who say that they tried but failed to find work count as
unemployed.) The different methods often lead to results that seem
contradictory from month to month, but over longer periods, they should
tell a similar tale.
For more than a year now, the central theme of the story of
employment in New York has been fairly robust growth. Barbara Byrne

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11/8/14

New York Citys Unemployment Rate Fell to 6.8% in September - NYTimes.com

Denham, an independent economist who has tracked the local labor

numbers for years, said employers in the city had added more than 82,000
jobs this year and were on pace for a total increase of more than 100,000
in 2014, more than in any year on record.
Ms. Denham, who adjusts the official monthly numbers for seasonal
fluctuations in hiring and layoffs, said Wall Street added jobs in
September after shedding them in the two previous months. All of the
professional business services industries saw growth in September, she
said.
The citys unemployment rate was the lowest since November 2008,
when it was at 6.6 percent, Ms. Volovelsky said.
Statewide, the unemployment rate fell to 6.2 percent in September, its
lowest since October 2008, from 6.4 percent in August.
A version of this article appears in print on October 17, 2014, on page A29 of the New York edition
with the headline: Unemployment Rate in City Dropped to 6.8% Last Month.

2014 The New York Times Company

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