The state Department of Labor data released last Tuesday shows that Nassau County’s unemployment rate has dropped .7 percent from January 2015 to January 2016, giving it the lowest unemployment rate of any county in the state at 4.2 percent.
Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano said his office’s initiatives have played a major role in the county’s decreasing unemployment rates.
“Our taxpayer conscious policies have sent a clear message to employers to create local jobs,” Mangano said. “Nassau County now has the lowest unemployment rate in the State of New York and that is evidence of our economic policies which have created unprecedented job opportunities for residents.”
The number of employed residents rose by approximately 17,500, or 2.6 percent, from January 2015, according to the data, to reach about 669,000 employed.
The number of unemployed residents dropped by approximately 4,400, or 13 percent, from January 2015, according to the data, to reach about 29,000 unemployed.
Shital Patel, a labor market analyst at the Department of Labor’s Hicksville office, told Newsday that the discrepancy in numbers stemmed from residents who stopped looking for work, thus not considered unemployed, entering the job market again and finding employment.
“Most of the people that are re-entering the labor force are finding work,” Patel said.
Mangano said the county’s focus on maintaining low property taxes played a role in increasing employment rates.
“My administration knows that high taxes kill jobs and depress the local economy,” Mangano said. “That is why I repealed the Home Energy Tax and worked with the Legislature to freeze property taxes for five years.”
In Suffolk County, the unemployment rate dropped 0.8 percent to 4.8 percent, according to the data.
In New York, the unemployment rate was at 5.5 percent, according to the data, and unemployment in the United States was at 5.3 percent.
The state’s Department of Labor uses year-by-year comparisons of employment rates rather than monthly comparisons since the local data it gathers is not adjusted for seasonal increases in employment, such as winter and summer job layoffs and hires.
