SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — The national unemployment rate continued to decline in October to near pre-pandemic levels, adding 531,000 jobs to the national economy, but the number of jobs remains high.
The labor force participation rate, a measure of the percentage of the civilian population employed, was unchanged in October from September's 61.6% — 1.7 percentage points lower than the rate in February 2020. Nationally, there were about 10 .4 million jobs at the end of September.
Meanwhile, the national unemployment rate fell from 4.8 percent to 4.6 percent from September to October, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The unemployment rate before the pandemic was 3.5%.
The latest available local unemployment figures are for September. this rate has improved since August in the Southampton area and remains lower than it was at the start of the pandemic.
Suffolk County's unemployment rate was 4.2 percent in September, up from 5.1 percent in August. This reflected some improvement from September 2020, when the unemployment rate stood at 6.4%.
Suffolk County's September unemployment rate was also lower than New York's rate of 6.3 percent, according to the latest BLS data.
The BLS also revised August and September national jobs report data. The September figure was revised up from 194,000 jobs added to 312,000, and the August total increased from 366,000 jobs added to 483,000.
