SULLIVAN COUNTY –– According to preliminary job data recently released by the New York State Department of Labor (NYSDOL), Sullivan County had the second fastest year-over-year private sector job growth in the Hudson Valley Region in September, up 3.8 percent.

The Orange-Rockland-Westchester labor market area’s private employment sector grew the fastest year-over-year, up 4.5 percent.

The sector with the highest gains was once again leisure and hospitality with an additional 900 jobs.
As far as the unemployment rate, Sullivan County’s is 4.4 percent for September 2021, which is down from seven percent in September 2020.

Within the Hudson Valley Region, Putnam County has the lowest unemployment rate at 3.9 percent. Neighboring Ulster and Orange Counties have unemployment rates of 4.2 and 4.3 percent respectively.
According to the NYSDOL, the September 2021 unemployment rate for the Hudson Valley Region is 4.3 percent. That is down from 5.1 percent in August 2021 and down from 6.7 percent in September 2020.
In September 2021, there were 47,400 unemployed in the region, down from 57,400 in August 2021 and down from 74,700 in September 2020. Year-over-year in September 2021, labor force decreased by 10,500 or 0.9 percent, to 1,105,800.

Sullivan County Partnership for Economic Development President/CEO Marc Baez said the numbers are seemingly good, because the unemployment rate is down, but that there’s still more jobs than there are workers to fill them.

“That’s a problem that every business is facing,” said Baez. “Real Estate, is still very active. So there are really good signs that our economy is coming back and things are starting to stabilize.”

Baez added that the Partnership is getting a lot more interest from companies wanting to come into the area.

He added, however, it’s still problematic that the Hudson Valley region labor force is down 10,500 people.

“Are they even looking for work? Are they even being counted? Certainly, if we had 10,500 more people working in the Valley, the economy would really be on fire as it was prior to pandemic,” said Baez. “So I’m hoping that we can get those people that are out there, back into the workforce in some capacity.”