All Over Albany

Adding jobs one place, losing them another

New York State added more than 40,000 private sector jobs last month -- the biggest such increase since 2005, according to the state Department of Labor. Good news!

Here's the thing, though: the state lost 37,000 public sector jobs compared to the same month a year ago. The large majority of those jobs were at the local level. And with stimulus money drying up, you have to figure governments will keep cutting.

The Capital Region added 2,800 private sector jobs in October, compared to October 2009. But public sector losses put the overall change at -1,900. There are still roughly 30,000 unemployed people in this area.

Still, the Capital Region's unemployment rate last month was 6.7 percent, the same as October 2009. The Capital Region has the lowest unemployment rate in the state, except for Ithaca (5.5 percent).

The state's rate was 8.3, unchanged from September and down from 9.2 in the same period the year before. The national unemployment rate was 9.6, the same as September, and down from 10.1 in October 2009.

* In the table above, the national and state rates are seasonally adjusted, so go right ahead and compare consecutive months. The local data is not seasonally adjusted, so the best comparison is the same month from the year before.

All data from NYS DOL