Job and employment data released recently by the NYS Labor Department indicate a strong labor market for Genesee County.
There are 21,500 non-farm jobs in Genesee County, up from 21,000 a year ago.
The total number of private-sector jobs grew from 15,900 to 16,300.
The county's unemployment rate for February 2022 was 4.1 percent, down from 6.2 a year ago and the lowest rate for any February since at least 1990.
The total labor force (the number of people working or seeking work) grew from 29,000 to 29,200.
The total number of local residents employed in February was 28,200, up from 27,200. The number of employed in February 2020 was higher at 28,600, which was the highest level since 2009 when it was 29,600.
The total unemployed -- people still in the market for jobs -- was 1,200, down from 1,800 a year earlier and lower than in 2020, just before the start of the pandemic, when it was 1,600. The February total for Genesee County was the lowest since at least 1990.
The state's unemployment rate is 5.1 percent and the nation's is 3.8 percent.
In a recent report, however, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (a Federal agency), New York has a higher labor under-utilization rate than the rest of the nation.
Labor under-utilization is a measure of the number of people who are unemployed, employed part-time for economic reasons, and those marginally attached to the labor force.
For New York, the rate is 12.2. Nationally it is 9.4 percent.
New York City's under-utilization rate appears to be pushing up the state average. In NYC it is 15.5. For the rest of the state, the data is not broken down by county so the statistic isn't available specifically for Genesee County.
