Brookhaven Unemployment Dips in December

The Town of Brookhaven’s unemployment rate inched down in December to 7.2 percent, but the area, and Long Island as a whole, is still not adding jobs with vigor.

Last month’s jobless rate was down just slightly from November, when 7.3 percent of the population was without work, according to the New York State Department of Labor. The drop accounts for about 250 town residents that found jobs last month.

Long Island’s unemployment rate also ticked down to 7 percent from 7.1 percent in November. Michael Crowell, senior economist for the state labor department, said despite the drop, the local jobless rate is still one of the highest on record.

“The fact that it’s still so persistently high, I would say, is discouraging news,” Crowell said. “The 7 percent in December is the same as last year, but it’s also the highest we’ve had in December going back to 1990 when we started this series.”

Brookhaven was again on the lower end of unemployment numbers, compared to other towns in Suffolk County. Southampton topped the county with an 8.6 percent jobless rate and Huntington and Smithtown came in the lowest, with 6.2 percent of residents unemployed.

Long Island added 8,800 private-sector jobs during the 12 months ended in December, according to the labor department, an almost 1 percent gain. Crowell said a normal increase before the recession was 2 percent growth.

School cuts again hurt the government sector, which lost 4,500 jobs during the period, a 2 percent drop.

The bright spot in the report was an increase in the category called other services, which includes temp agencies, Crowell said. An increase there “usually precedes an upswing in the private sector,” he added.

But despite the slight growth, the Island is still around 40,000 jobs off the numbers seen in 2007 before the recession.

“I’m not very optimistic about the jobs picture,” Crowell said. “The recession’s been officially over for more than a year, but we just don’t seem to be seeing a lot of job growth and the number of long-term unemployed doesn’t seem to be going down.”