The U.S. Department of Labor announced that unemployment fell from 9.4% in December to 9% in January. This is the lowest unemployment level since April 2009. Still, job growth was weaker than expected, with only 36,000 jobs created, "partly the result of severe snow storms that slammed large parts of the nation." more ›

Working off his plan to house the city's homeless in vacant buildings, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer outlined how he would go about collecting a census of the city's empty buildings: hire the jobless! Well, not really, because they'd be volunteers, but it'd at least give them something to do. "The City already dispatches volunteers for its annual street homeless count, so this approach would not be without precedent," he said. "And, to be honest, counting vacant lots isn't rocket science. It would require a minimal amount of training." Training that would include learning to identify when a person is in a room? more ›

The overall unemployment rate in NYC was 10.1 percent in the third quarter of 2009, but the jobless numbers vary greatly from neighborhood to neighborhood, according to a distressing, if unsurprising, new study by the Fiscal Policy Institute, a liberal research group. For example, overall unemployment was 5.1% on Manhattan's Upper East and West Sides, compared to 15.7% in Central Bronx and 19.2% in East New York. FPI also broke down the data by race, finding that blacks rank #1 in the jobless category in almost every part of NYC (except areas of Staten Island and Whitestone, Queens, where info on blacks was "not applicable.") more ›

The NY State Department of Labor released November unemployment information, and the numbers were a little better over October's: The state rate is now 8.6%, down from 9% in October, while the NYC rate is 10%, down from 10.2% in October. (In 2008, the November state unemployment rate was 6.3% while the NYC rate was 6.7%.) The one sector with job growth was education and health services. more ›

When once prominent lawyer Marc Dreier was arrested for a $700 million scam, the lawyers at his firm fled and the company collapsed . One of the employees, copy machine operator and trainer Carlton Palmer, is featured in a NY Times "Neediest Cases" profile: "He learned of his unemployment by e-mail, and is still owed $2,000 in back wages." Palmer has been looking for work via job listings websites ("I don’t like to get up in the morning and not work. I like a paycheck.") and embarked on training to be a dialysis technician. The Neediest Cases helped him out with some tuition money, but he need a job to complete 2,000 hours before he can get a certification, "Sometimes you feel the pressure, but you hope for the best. You hope for the phone to ring with a 212 number." more ›

The new jobless numbers from the State Labor Department are not too good, not too good at all. New York City's unemployment rate increased to 9.5 percent in June (the highest level since July 1997), while the rate outside of NYC climbed to 8.2 percent, the highest since June 1983. Last month the number of unemployed state residents jumped to 854,200, the greatest number ever on record. Low-five? And the state's overall unemployment rate soared to 8.7 percent in June, its highest level since October 1992, the same month that Sinéad O'Connor ripped up a photo of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live. It wouldn't really be fair to blame all our problems on Sinéad this time, so let's just ramp up the class warfare and note that today also marked the announcement that JP Morgan's profits were up 36%, with second quarter earnings ballooning to $2.7 billion. Surely some of that largesse will be trickling down any day now! more ›

A bill to raise New York's unemployment benefits, which allow a maximum payout of $430/week ($150 less than states like NJ and Connecticut), has died on the vine. Despite support from Governor Paterson, labor leaders and many lawmakers, the highly dysfunctional Senate seems incapable of passing the bill, which would have raised maximum weekly jobless benefits on July 1st to $625, and close the gap in the state’s unemployment trust fund. According to the Times, it's as good as dead, because apparently the Assembly is not currently scheduled to convene until January. Meanwhile, the state’s Labor Department reports that more New Yorkers were out of work than at any time in more than 30 years; last month the jobless rate hit 7.8% (in NYC, the rate is 8.1%). Advocate for the unemployed Andrew Stettner says, "It’s a big problem that we’ve fallen so short in terms of not doing this. What was nice about this legislation was it got the benefits out during the recession and it had a plan for paying back the fund over several years. It was a smart approach." Ah, but Albany doesn't really do smart approaches. more ›

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics: "Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline sharply in March (-663,000), and the unemployment rate rose from 8.1 to 8.5 percent... Since the recession began in December 2007, 5.1 million jobs have been lost, with almost two-thirds (3.3 million) of the decrease occurring in the last 5 months." This is the highest unemployment has been since November 1983. The BLS also "drastically revised the job losses in January to 741,000 from the earlier report of 655,000." Yikes! Apparently the Federal Reserve expect unemployment to hit a high of 8.8%, but some believe it could reach 10%. More depressing news: The Wall Street Journal points out the U-6 rate of unemployment was is 15.6% in March (up from 14.8% in Feb.); U-6 "accounts for people who have stopped looking for work or who can’t find full-time jobs." more ›

Today, Monster.com is kicking off its "Keep America Working" tour with a job fair at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square (it's at 1535 Broadway, at 46th Street, on the 5th floor), which starts at 9 a.m. and ends at 3 p.m. WCBS 2 reports that over 90 employers will be at the job fair and thousands of job seekers are expected. In a small bit of less-depressing- than-the-usual news, jobless claims fell 31,000 from the original estimate of 670,000 claims for the week ending February 28. Of course, 639,000 jobless claims is no fun and the number of people continuing to stay on unemployment is 5.11 million (for the week ending February 21). Reuters says, "That number remains near record highs, indicating that the harsh economic environment is making it tough to find new jobs." more ›

The Labor Department announced that the national unemployment rate for January is 7.6%, up from December's 7.2%. The 598,000 jobs cut last month is the "deepest cut in payrolls in 34 years," according to CNBC. Economists had been expecting the numbers to come in at 7.5% unemployment rate and 525,000 jobs lost. Labor Statistics Commissioner Keith Hall added, "January's sharp drop in employment brings job losses to 3.6 million since the start of the recession in December 2007," plus "about half the decline occurred in the last three months." These stats will be mentioned as the Obama administration tries to pass the stimulus bill. Senate Majority Harry Reid is "cautiously optimistic" it will pass. more ›