Smithtown Unemployment Rate Falls in March

The Town of Smithtown's unemployment rate fell .5 percent in March to 6 percent compared to 6.5 percent in March 2010, according to data released Tuesday by the New York State Department of Labor.

The March 2011 unemployment rate was also lower than that of February 2011, when the unemployment rate was also 6.5 percent.

The town fell well below the Suffolk's jobless rate of 7.5 percent for March 2011, which also marked a decline from 8.1 percent in the year-ago period.

Jim Brown, a labor market analyst with the New York State Department of Labor,  said the slide correlates to a seasonal trend.

"The month over month drop was due to seasonal pickup in hiring—there was fairly significant job growth between February and March. Especially in construction, and leisure/hospitality," he said, adding that weather likely plays a significant factor. "There was a particularly nice gain in job construction – though it may have been depressed in February due to the weather.”

Smithtown’s unemployment rate also fell well below the Long Island jobless rate of 7.1 percent and the New York State rate of 8.0 percent.

Brown said that the uptick in employment in Suffolk is likely to carry throughout the spring.

“Long Island and the broader downstate economy has been settling in at a fairly decent job growth rate, which should continue to push the unemployment rate down.”

He also said that hiring spikes in the leisure and hospitality sectors signal an improvement in the economy.

The town’s labor force dropped off slightly from March 2010 to March 2011, from 61,400 to 60,900. The number stayed steady from February 2011.

The number of people unemployed dropped in March 2011 from March 2010, with 3,600 people unemployed this year compared to 4,00 people last year. In February 2011, 4,000 town residents were out of work.

Riverhead Patch editor Joseph Pinciaro contributed to this article.