Politics & Government

5 Things to Know: Unemployment Falls Across the Region

Shrinking workforce causes jobless numbers to slip.

Though a weak and unpredictable economy still has many locals worried, New York State and most of the regions that make it up saw unemployment slide in July, according to recent reports.

Long Island as a whole saw its July jobless rate fall to 7.1 percent, compared to 7.5 percent in the same period last year. The same was seen throughout Suffolk County, though Jim Brown, labor market analyst for the New York Department of Labor, said it’s not necessarily a sign of good tidings. Instead, a shrinking workforce gets the credit.

"Sometimes this is a sign that a population is getting smaller," he said. "More commonly, what you are seeing is people giving up on job searches and making decisions to do other things, whether it’s retire, go back to school or stay home and raise kids instead of working a second family job."

For today’s 5 Things, here’s a sampling of the July jobs numbers on the local level.

1. Suffolk County's jobless rate was 7.4 percent, which fell from the prior year's 7.7 percent. Nassau County's unemployment rate also dipped to 6.8 percent, compared to 7.2 percent in June 2010.

2. In Smithtown, , compared to 6.8 percent in July of 2010.

3. Riverhead saw the percentage of , compared to 7.1 percent in the year-ago period.

4. Meanwhile, Brookhaven, which has one of the higher unemployment rates in Suffolk, , down from 8 percent one year ago.

5. And in Southampton, , down from 6.6 percent the same month in 2010.


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