Island's jobless rate drops to 7.1 percent
Arielle DeVecchis, 19, of Lindenhurst, a seasonal worker, operates a ride at Adventureland in Farmingdale. Seasonal hiring in leisure, hospitality and building has helped jobless numbers drop. (April 19, 2011) Credit: Chris Ware
Long Island's unemployment rate fell to 7.1 percent in March, the lowest since December, according to data released Tuesday by the state Labor Department. The rate fell from 7.7 percent in February, but is still considerably above the pre-recession 4.5 percent in March 2008.
Some economists cautioned that the latest number doesn't paint a complete picture of the job market's health.
Seasonal factors drove the unemployment rate down, such as hiring in construction and leisure and hospitality in the last month because of milder weather and job growth in retail trade because of Easter shopping, said James P. Brown, a labor market analyst for the Labor Department.
Seasonal hiring is in full swing, for example, at Adventureland, which has added 250 seasonal employees in the past month, a typical number for this time of year, said Paul Gentile, operations manager of the East Farmingdale amusement park. He has hired mostly high school and college students to operate rides, food concessions, games and gift shops. He plans to add another 250 by June. But he is still waiting on crowds to materialize.
"The weather hasn't been cooperating," he said.
Some economists said they put less stock in the unemployment rate than actual employment numbers because the statistic doesn't include discouraged workers, those who have given up looking for jobs, or workers who are forced to work part-time because they can't find full-time work. Those numbers remain at high rates nationally. They aren't broken out locally.
"The official unemployment rate tends to be a misleading portrait of the economy," said Pearl Kamer, chief economist for the Long Island Association. "I tend to rely on jobs generated and what is happening in other sectors like housing and consumer [spending]. The latest statistics for both those sectors show a flat economy."
Martin Cantor, who heads Dowling College's Long Island Economic and Social Policy Institute on the Oakdale campus, also believes job growth hasn't been strong enough to make a significant dent in the jobless rate. The Island had 8,000 more nonfarm jobs in March, or 0.7 percent more, than it had in March 2010, the Labor Department reported last week.
"That would tell you that any drop in the unemployment rate is influenced more by people dropping out of looking for work rather than by an increase in employment," he said.
Hempstead Village had the highest unemployment rate, at 10.6 percent. Rockville Centre had the lowest, 5.1 percent. The state unemployment rate dropped to 8 percent in March, from 8.7 percent in February.
