Nassau jobless rate at 2.9%, Suffolk at 3% in September

Long Island’s jobless rate hit 3% last month, up slightly from the same time a year ago, state Labor Department data shows.

The Island’s unemployment rate rose from the same month last year by 0.3 percentage points from 2.7%, a record low for the month. But the uptick is largely the result of an increase in the region’s labor force over the year, according to the data released Tuesday.

Between September 2022 and last month, the local labor force increased by 33,700 Islanders, with most of those entrants, over 28,000, finding employment. That overall increase in labor force participants skewed the jobless rate higher last month.

“The big picture is we had a pretty substantial increase in the labor force compared to last year,” said Shital Patel, labor market analyst with the Labor Department’s Hicksville office. “And more of those people found employment than not.”

The labor force is the combined total of all Islanders who either have a job or are out of work and actively looking for employment. Unemployed individuals who are not job hunting are not recorded in state unemployment figures.

The Nassau jobless rate was 2.9%, and Suffolk’s was 3%.

On a month-to-month basis — from August to September — the jobless rate fell slightly, a change typically seen each year as many workers who only work during the summer months leave the labor force.

“All the seasonal workers are moving out of employment and also out of the labor force,” Patel said.

“Usually there are some small share of those workers moving into the unemployed category, but the vast majority are seasonal workers moving out of employment,” she said.

John Rizzo, economist and professor at Stony Brook University, said the year-over-year uptick in the jobless rate makes sense in an economy that has seen historically lower unemployment rates. At a certain point, there’s not too much further down to go.

“The labor market continues to be very strong,” Rizzo said. “There was a slight increase, but how can it possibly go any lower than it has.”

The municipalities with the highest and lowest unemployment rates last month were Hempstead Village with a rate of 3.6%, and Southampton, with a rate of 2.7%.