It’s been a rough year for jobs in Oswego County.
State unemployment data released Thursday shows that while joblessness did not increase from July to August of this year, the jobless rate is up by 40% from August, 2007.
Unemployment:
- In August, 2008: 6.6%
- In July, 2008: 6.6%
- In August, 2007, 4.7%
The unemployment rate counts two things: The number of people who have a job and the number of people who do not have a job but are looking for one. It does not count people who have stopped looking for work.
The number of people who said they had a job fell from July to August, from 57,100 to 56,800. Both of those numbers are lower than the number of Oswego County residents who had a job in August, 2007: 57,300.
The number of people looking for work has increased by 1,200 from August 2007 to August 2008. 4,000 people are reported to be without a job and looking for one.
The news that Oswego Wire will, by year’s end, eliminate more manufacturing jobs will put more pressure on the jobless rate and increase the numbers of people looking for work.
Oswego County is part of the three-county Syracuse area, along with Madison and Onondaga Counties. The jobless rate for the three county area is a percentage point lower than the rate for Oswego County alone. But the other two counties are seeing the same trend — fewer people holding jobs, significantly more people looking for jobs.
The statewide unemployment rate of 5.8% in August is the highest in four years, according to the State Labor Department.
“New York State’s labor market indicators reported mixed signals in August. Although the state did add 3,000 private sector jobs, the unemployment rate increased from 5.2 percent in July to 5.8 percent in August. This 0.6 percentage point jump represented the largest monthly increase in the state’s rate since January 1991,” said Peter A. Neenan, director of the Division of Research and Statistics, in the department’s release announcing the figures.
The manufacturing and financial sectors led the way in job losses. The extreme turmoil on Wall Street this month will heighten financial sector job losses for the rest of the year.
Most counties reported jobless rates in the 5 to 6% range. Upstate, St. Lawrence County recorded the highest rate, 7.1%, while Bronx County had the state’s overall highest jobless rate, 8%. Tiny Hamilton County, with just 4,000 people recorded as either working or looking for work, had the lowest unemployment rate, at 3%.
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Is it any wonder people are leaving the area no jobs ever increasing taxes because city and county employees got to have their raises. When is it enough? When will the cityies and county stop giving away our money like it is an unlimited comodity? My god in Fulton the csea and pba combined are getting a 21% pay increase and next to come is the fire dept contract which if the trend holds another 10 1/2% increase in pay for them too. making for a 32% pay increase for city of fulton employees. Guess who is going to be footing the tab? The unemployed and barely employed taxpayers. Yet when asked for what the projected tax increase will be for all these generous raises the city doesn’t know. Yet they have no problem doleing out our money without any thought on the future burden they are putting on the people. But to top it all off the local media goes along with the status quo and doesn’t question why the city and county are still spending in these extremely harsh economic times. While government employees are enjoying their involuntarily taxpayer donated raises, we the tax payers are forced to make do with even less now. Way to go elected officials.