State Hits Record Private Sector Job Count In March

YORKTOWN, NY — In March 2018, New York State’s private sector job count rose to 8,152,500, a new, all-time high, according to preliminary figures released this week by the New York State Department of Labor. In the past year, private sector employment in the Hudson Valley's metro regions grew as well, though only the Dutchess-Putnam metro area showed significant growth.

• Dutchess-Putnam: 3.1 percent
• Kingston: 1.1 percent
• Orange-Rockland-Westchester: 0.4 percent

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“New York State’s economy continued to expand in March as we reached a new, all-time high private sector job count and remained at our lowest statewide unemployment rate since before the recession,” said Bohdan M. Wynnyk, Director of the New York State Department of Labor’s Division of Research and Statistics.

Eleven metro areas in New York State added private sector jobs over the past year. The most rapid employment growth was in these areas:

• Ithaca (+4.0%)
• Dutchess-Putnam (+3.1%)
• Watertown-Fort Drum (+2.1%)
• Albany-Schenectady-Troy (+1.9%)
• New York City (+1.9%)
• Buffalo-Niagara Falls (+1.6%)

New York State’s economy has experienced employment growth in 76 of the past 87 months. Its statewide unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.6 percent in March 2018 — a rate that matches New York State’s lowest level since July 2007.

New York City’s jobless rate remains at an all-time low, state officials said.

The State’s private sector job count is based on a payroll survey of 18,000 New York employers conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. Monthly payroll employment estimates are preliminary and subject to revision as more data become available the following month. The federal government calculates New York State’s unemployment rate based partly upon the results of the Current Population Survey, which contacts approximately 3,100 households in New York State each month.

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