Stats Show Record-Breaking Unemployment in Southampton Town

The state Labor Department released monthly unemployment statistics Thursday afternoon and the picture for Southampton Town was bleak.

The town saw its worst December since at least 1990 — the first year the Labor Department started keeping track. Unemployment hit 8.6 percent, up half a percent from December 2009.

One redeeming factor is that the town did not lose jobs compared to December 2009 — there were still 29,000 employed workers. Rather, 100 more residents are looking for work, according to Labor Department statistics. “Discouraged workers,” or those who have stopped looking for work, are not counted among the labor force until they return to the job search.

Of a labor force of 31,700 in Southampton Town, approximately 2,700 were out of work in December 2010.

“I’m not very optimistic about the jobs picture,” said Michael Crowell, a senior economist for the Labor Department. “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.”

The unemployment rate across Suffolk County has remained stagnant. The Labor Department reported a rate of 7.3 percent for December, exactly the same rate as a month earlier and the same as December 2009.

From May through September, the unemployment rate in Southampton showed improvement compared to 2009. However, when October 2010 came the town was right back where it was a year earlier, with a 6.6 percent unemployment rate. Over the next two months, things only got worse, Labor Department statistics showed.

For the past 10 years, unemployment has typically risen in Southampton from November to December, indicative of the town’s seasonal economy, and 2010 was no exception. The rate rose from 7.7 to the aforementioned 8.6 percent.

If history is any indicator, unemployment will be even higher for January through March in Southampton, before hiring really starts to pick up again in April, as businesses prepare for the summer swell.