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By Joan Gralla
April 15, 2011 10:19 AM EDT
New York City's unemployment rate eased to 8.7 percent in March, a drop of two-tenths of a percentage point from February, the state Department of Labor said on Thursday.
Similarly, New York state's jobless rate slipped by the same amount to 8 percent.
"During the current economic recovery, the state has added 119,500 private-sector jobs," said Bohdan Wynnyk, chief of labor statistics, for the state Department of Labor. "Both the state's unemployment rate and number of unemployed were at their lowest levels since March 2009."
But Wall Street, the engine for the economies of New York City and New York state, shed 600 jobs in March from February, declining to a total of 169,000, according to James Brown, a state labor market analyst.
One year ago, securities and commodities companies had a smaller work force of 160,800 people.
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The much bigger financial activities sector, which includes commercial banking and insurance, mirrored the pattern seen on Wall Street as this sector shed 100 jobs in March, but has added 9,100 workers since a year ago, bringing the March total to 433,100.
Brown noted that two sectors are underperforming: construction as well as leisure and hospitality.
"After a weak performance in February -- the bad winter probably played a role -- construction employment snapped back in March adding 3,500," Brown said.
Still, this industry is 20 percent below its 2008 levels, he said.
"For the second month in a row, leisure and hospitality underperformed, adding 2,900 jobs when a gain of more than 4,000 is typical," he said.
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