By Kieran K. Meadows
New York City’s unemployment rate soared to 9.6 percent in July, up from 9.4 percent in June, making it the first month in which the city’s rate was higher than the national rate, according to data released by the state Department of Labor. The U.S. unemployment rate currently stands at 9.4 percent.
“This is something we’ve been expecting for awhile,” said James Brown, the principal economist for the New York State Labor Department. The city was actually quite late into this national recession, he said, compared to some other parts of the country, which saw their economies slowing down since 2006.
“We had pretty positive numbers well into 2008, but we are slipping fast,” Brown said.
The city’s economy has weakened significantly since this same time last year, when the unemployment rate was more than four percentage points lower. Since August 2008, the month the city entered the recession—almost a year behind the nation—it has lost 72,300 jobs.
Yet, in the face of these bleak numbers, there was job growth in the city in July, after months of steady declines. The city added 39,200 jobs in July, according to seasonally-adjusted data from Eastern Consolidated, a real estate investment services company.
Notes and Beats 