All Over Albany

More people looking for work?

Updated 10:20 am Friday

The state released last month's unemployment data today. The short story: the Capital Region's unemployment rate in October was 4.9 percent -- that's up from 3.6 percent in October of last year.

OK, so maybe that's not surprising given the way the economy's been going. But get this: the number of jobs in the Capital Region over that time period didn't change.

Huh?

When it comes to unemployment rates, "unemployment" actually means "an estimate of the number of people who don't have a job but are actively looking for one." (Here's a little longer, more nuanced explanation from the state.) So, we're wondering if today's numbers indicate not just that more people are "unemployed" now versus last year, but that more people in the Capital Region have decided that they now need to find work versus last year.

Another possibility: people are coming to the area for jobs that were just recently created (for example, in nanotech), but people already here in traditional industries are losing their jobs. The number of jobs would (could) be a wash, but more people would now be looking for work.

(Updated: A labor department analyst said in the TU Friday morning the answer is probably: both.)

Admittedly, our handle on how this data is analyzed is a little shaky (we just had someone explain time series regressions and it was literally Greek to us). We know a lot of people in the AOA crowd have serious nerd skills (we say that with much admiration) -- is this speculation on base?

photo: Flickr user califrayray