Capital District Unemployment Remains Near 4%

The New York State Department of Labor has released regional labor market data up through February 2019. Utilizing this data over the last three years and comparing to the January 2018 DataNews, emerging trends can be identified or a continuation of old trends. From December 2014 through December 2017, both the Capital District and New York State saw a downward trend in unemployment rates. Since then, employment rates have fluctuated similarly in New York State and the Capital District, but have continued the downward trend overall.

After November 2017, unemployment rates increased over .5% by January. However, after this increase, rates fell below 4% for the Capital District and the State in May 2018. Rates would fluctuate over the next 9 months until ultimately settling at 3.8% for the Capital District and 4.4% for New York State in February 2019.

While both have fluctuated, unemployment rates have averaged around 4%, with the Capital District averaging at a rate of 3.9% and the State at 4.3% since November of 2017. This is on trend for the Capital District and continues a pattern of unemployment rates hovering around 4% since 2015.

CDRPC publishes regional employment and unemployment information from the New York State Department of Labor. The Department of Labor notes that current month data is preliminary and subject to revision as more information becomes available in the following month. Data is collected and reported over time in a single data set. The full dataset is available on our website.