Business

State: Suffolk unemployment up slightly from this time last year

Unemployment is slightly up in Suffolk County from this time last year, according to statistics released Tuesday by the state department of Labor.

The unemployment rate at the end of September was 7.3 percent in Suffolk County up from 7.1 percent at the end of September 2011, the labor department said.

In contrast, the U.D. Department of Labor’s private sector job count, which is based on a survey of over 18,000 employers, increased by more than 134,000 from September 2011 to September 2012, according to the release.

The state’s overall unemployment rate fell from 9.1 percent to 8.9 percent in September 2012.

The state rate relies on the results of a telephone survey of 3,100 households (out of more than 7 million) in New York State as a primary source of data.

Local Area Unemployment Rates (%), September 2011-12

  September2012* September2011
Upstate NY (52-co. area) 8.1 7.8
   Metro Areas 8.0 7.6
      Albany-Schenectady-Troy 7.5 7.1
      Binghamton 8.5 8.3
      Buffalo-Niagara Falls 8.4 7.7
      Elmira 9.0 8.0
      Glens Falls 7.4 7.2
      Ithaca 5.7 5.9
      Kingston 8.6 8.1
      Poughkeepsie-Newburgh-Middletown 8.1 7.7
      Rochester 7.9 7.6
      Syracuse 8.4 8.1
      Utica-Rome 8.0 7.8
   Non-metro Counties 8.5 8.2
 
Downstate NY (10-co. area) 8.3 8.4
   New York City 8.8 9.1
   Suburban Counties 7.3 7.0
       Nassau-Suffolk 7.3 7.1
       Putnam-Rockland-Westchester 7.1 6.8

*Data are preliminary and subject to change.