A sharp rise in the number of people looking for work in Oswego County boosted the county’s unemployment rate to 6.6% in June, according to the state Labor Department.
The rate of joblessness is up one-tenth of a percentage point from May and is up 1.2 percentage points from June, 2007.
Comparing June 2007 with this June, the state finds the same number of people — 57,200 — have jobs. The dramatic year-to-year increase is driven by a sharp rise in the number of people listed as unemployed. 4,100 people said they were without jobs in June of this year, compared with 3,300 a year ago. That’s an increase of nearly 25%.
The three county Syracuse labor market, which includes Oswego, Onondaga and Madison counties, is seeing similar sharp rises in unemployment. The three-cointy rate rose two-tenths of a point from the month before, to 5.4% in June. The year-to-year rate, however, is up more than one percentage point.
Across the state, the jobless rate rose three-tenths of a point from May to June, to 5.2%.
“most indicators suggest that the state’s labor market conditions continue to deteriorate. The rate of over-the-year private sector job growth has decelerated — from 1.5 percent in the first half of 2007 to 0.7 percent in the first half of 2008. In addition, the statewide unemployment rate in June 2008 reached its highest level since December 2004,” said Peter A. Neenan, director of the Labor Department’s Division of Research and Statistics, in a news release that did not attempt to put the best face on a deteriorating jobs picture.
Huge gains in the numbers of health care, education and government jobs were balanced by sharp drops in manufacturing jobs and also by job losses in the financial services sector, hit hard by the credit crunch, foreclosure crisis and downturn in the stock markets.
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