Smithtown's Unemployment Drops in February

The Town of Smithtown's unemployment rate fell .5 percent in February to 6.5 percent compared to 7 percent in February 2010, according to data released Tuesday by the New York State Department of Labor.

The February 2011 unemployment rate was also lower than that of January 2011, when the unemployment rate was 6.7 percent.

The town fell well below the Suffolk's jobless rate of 8.2 percent for February 2011, whic also fell from 8.7 percent in the year-ago period.

Long Island economist with the New York State Department of Labor Michael Crowell said the slide is a “pretty healthy decline."

"The bad news is it’s just the first month so it’s too early to see a trend there.”

Smithtown’s unemployment rate also fell well below the Long Island jobless rate of 7.8 percent and the New York State rate of 8.7 percent.

Crowell said that although the decrease in unemployment is positive, there is a lot of ground to make up since the recession.

“Obviously you’d rather have it go down half a percentage point than up,” he said. “Before the recession began the employment rate in Suffolk was closer to 4 percent, so obviously we have a long way to go to get back there.”

The town’s labor force dropped off slightly from February 2010 to February 2011, from 61,000 to 60,800, and decreased from January 2010 when the labor force was 61,200.

The number of people unemployed dropped in February 2011 from February 2010, with 4,000 people unemployed this year compared to 4,300 people last year. In January 2011, 4,100 people out of work in the town.

Southampton Patch editor Brendan J. O’Reilly contributed to this article.