Unemployment rates continue to creep up

For the third straight month, jobless rates in local counties are higher than in the same month a year earlier.

Unemployment rates across the Mid-Hudson Valley and Catskills were slightly higher in January than a year earlier, the state Department of Labor said Tuesday.

It was the third consecutive month in which the jobless rates in local counties were higher than in the corresponding month a year earlier.

The Ulster County unemployment rate in January was 5.4 percent, up from 5.3 percent in January 2017, while the Dutchess County rate ticked up from 4.7 percent to 4.8 percent over the same 12-month span, the labor department said.

In other local counties, according to the labor office, the unemployment rates in January were:

• 6.2 percent in Greene County, up from 6 percent in January 2017.

• 4.7 percent in Columbia County, up from 4.6 percent a year earlier.

• 7.3 percent in Delaware County, up from 7.1 percent.

• 5.1 percent in Orange County, up from 4.8 percent.

• 6 percent in Sullivan County, up from 4.6 percent.

The highest unemployment rate in the state in January was a sky-high 11.4 percent in Hamilton County, in the Adirondacks. That was 1.3 percentage points higher than the county’s January 2017 rate.

The lowest rate in the state in January 2018 was 4 percent in Queens County, in New York City

The statewide jobless rate in January was 5.1 percent, down a tick from 5.2 percent in January 2017, the labor department said.