Smithtown Unemployment Creeps Higher, First Uptick in 7 Months

Unemployment within the Town of Smithtown creeped higher in June, representing the first time in seven months that the jobless rate was higher than 2010's.

Smithtown's jobless rate climbed to 6.5 percent in June 2011, compared to 6.4 percent June of 2010, according to numbers released Tuesday by the New York State Department of Labor.

That means 4,100 were out of work and filing for unemployment benefits in the town.

The last time town unemployment was higher than the prior year's was November 2010, when the month's 6.4 percent jobless rate topped 6.3 percent one year earlier.

Smithtown's jobless rate was still one of the lower ones on Long Island, which as a whole saw 7.1 percent unemployment in June, holding flat over the prior year.

Suffolk County's jobless rate was 7.3 percent, which also inched higher than the prior year's 7.2 percent. Nassau's unemployment rate fell, however, to 6.9 percent compared to 7.1 percent in June 2010.

Babylon town, with 8.1 percent jobless, held the highest unemployment rate in Suffolk, while Huntington town, with 6.4 percent out of work, held the county's lowest rate.

"At this point in a downturn that’s usually an indication of discouraged workers," said Michael Crowell, senior economist for the New York State Department of Labor. "People just stopped looking for work. Unless there’s some more job growth, yes [this will continue]."

Crowell said this was just the second time in the past year the unemployment rate has not dropped for Long Island as a whole.

"If you look at the job numbers, there were three months in the beginning of the year when we added more than 10,000 jobs," he said. "It looked like a recovery was right around the corner but in June not only did we not add jobs but we ended up losing private sector jobs for the first time in a year."

The one bright spot he sees is the passing of the Green Jobs Financing Law. This would create jobs in the environmental sectors by making on-bill financing possible for energy-efficient home improvements.

With on-bill financing, those who have added energy-efficient improvements on their homes will still pay the same electric bill, but the savings resulting from the improvements goes directly to paying off the loan. The hope is that this will encourage more people to install solar panels and other energy-efficient technologies and thus, create more green jobs.

Overall, however, the numbers are troubling.

"It’s discouraging in general because back in the winter, the year-over-year [decrease] was up," Crowell said, "but now it’s down."