ALBANY, N.Y. — The region’s unemployment rate at the start of 2022 was 3.4 percent, the lowest for January in more than a third of a century, the state Department of Labor reported Tuesday.
January is the third straight month the Albany-Schenectady-Troy Metropolitan Statistical Area reached record lows in the years since 1989. The online database maintained by the Labor Department dates back to 1990.
The jobless rates in November (2.9 percent) and December (2.6 percent) also were 32-year lows for those months, and December was the lowest recorded in the region for any month since 1990.
January’s low unemployment rate came as the Albany region was experiencing a brief but intense surge of COVID infections.
The 430,900 people employed in January 2022 tied for highest in any January in the last decade, while the 15,200 unemployed was lower than any January in the last two decades.
The state issued the following estimates of county jobless rates in January 2022:
• Albany: 3.4 percent
• Fulton: 4.8 percent
• Montgomery: 4.9 percent
• Rensselaer: 3.6 percent
• Saratoga: 3 percent
• Schenectady: 3.8 percent
• Schoharie: 4.3 percent
Each of the rates was the lowest for January in that county in a third of a century, except Schenectady County, which hit 3.7 percent in January 2001.
Meanwhile, the Department of Labor reported the statewide jobless rate at 5.3 percent in January 2022.
That was boosted by New York City, where unemployment was 7.3 percent amid lagging economic recovery from the pandemic.
For the 57 counties outside New York City, the January unemployment rate was 3.8 percent, the lowest of any January in the current-era database.
The federal government reported a nationwide jobless rate of 4 percent for January 2022.
PUBLIC DATABASE
Also Tuesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration announced the launch of public wage and employment databases as part of its continuing campaign toward increased transparency.
“Data can help us better understand trends across New York state,” Department of Labor Commissioner Roberta Reardon said in a news release. “With these resources, New Yorkers can see employment trends in their region and beyond, explore salaries in occupations of interest, and much more.”
The Current Employment Statistics program breaks out data for the four-county Albany Metro area. It shows that total non-farm jobs stood at a seasonally adjusted 450,100 in January 2022. That’s up from 438,300 one year earlier, but down from pre-pandemic levels at 472,800 in 2020.
Workforce totals for 10 random sectors and subsectors in the Albany Metro area in January 2022; in parentheses is the change from 2020:
• 14,400 people in transportation and warehousing (up 13.4 percent from 2020)
• 8,700 in general merchandise stores (up 3.5 percent)
• 21,400 in ambulatory health care (flat)
• 46,200 in retail trade (flat)
• 26,200 in manufacturing (flat)
• 30,800 in professional/scientific services (flat)
• 10,300 worked in food and beverage stores (down 3.7 percent)
• 96,400 in government (down 5.1 percent)
• 33,500 in leisure and hospitality (down 12.5 percent)
• 16,600 in hospitals (13.1 percent)
LABOR UTILIZATION
Data released Wednesday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows New York had one of the highest rates of labor underutilization in 2021 — a measure of all types of unemployment and underemployment, from those out of jobs at least 15 weeks to those whose temporary gigs recently ended to those who’ve given up looking for work to those forced to work part time because there’s no full-time work available.
The broadest measure of this phenomenon averaged 12.2 percent in New York state in 2021, third-highest after California (12.8 percent) and Nevada (14 percent). The national average was 9.4percent.
New York City averaged 15.5percent, likely boosting the statewide average a few points higher than it would have been without New York City.
Also, the data suggest New York — both the city and the state as a whole — had one of the largest percentages of people forced to settle for part-time work because they could not find full-time jobs.
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