Unemployment in August Was 16.5% in Brooklyn

New York City’s unemployment is estimated by the NY State Labor Department to have been 16.3% in August, data released earlier today show. Last August it was at just 4.2%.

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Brooklyn’s unemployment numbers dropped somewhat to 16.5%, while the Bronx still set the record in the state at 21.1%. Queens came in at 16.4% and Staten Island at 13.8%. Manhattan had the lowest unemployment numbers at 12.9% in the city.

This is good news, as back in July, NYC had an unemployment rate of 20%. The Bronx led with 24.9%, Brooklyn was at 20.4%, Queens at 20.5%, and Manhattan and Staten Island at 15.9% and 17.3% respectively.

Just to help you visualize the extreme case we have in Brooklyn right now, below is the data from the NYS Department of Labor mapped.

What those double-digit unemployment rates mean is that almost 244,000 people in Brooklyn were unemployed in July, up from just 41,700 in January. August saw about 50,000 folks go back to work. (The two red lines in the graph below highlight 2020 and 2019 data.)

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Our labor force has shrunk. That means fewer people are looking for work:

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