NYS Unemployment by County

Data

The data that I used was published on the New York department of Labor website. The data I used is from February 2012 and the data is originally taken from the Local Area Unemployment Statistics Program also known as the LAUS program.

Patterns

                There are a few patterns that exist on the map of the unemployment rates of New York State.   First off the unemployment rates in this map are represented by the color that the particular county is shaded.  Colors that are shaded green are the counties with the lowest unemployment rates, and then as the color goes from green to yellow to dark orange the rates are getting higher and higher ending with red as the highest unemployment rate at 14.1%.

                One of the biggest patterns that you can see when first looking at this map is that the counties that are considered to make up the North Country seem to have higher unemployment rates in general compared to the counties in other regions of the state.  The next pattern that you will notice is that the counties in the area around New York City have on average a lower unemployment rate then other areas of the State.  The suburbs of New York City to the North like Westchester County and counties to the east like Nassau, and Suffolk counties have pretty low unemployment but as you get farther away from the city the unemployment rates start to increase.  However directly inside the City in the county of the Bronx the highest unemployment rate exists in the entire state and is surrounded by counties with much lower unemployment rates.  You can also see a clear shift in unemployment rates once you reach Saratoga County moving south along interstate 87.  Finally when looking at the map you notice Tompkins County which has the lowest unemployment rate in the state and it is surrounded by counties with reasonably higher rates. 

Pattern Analysis

                In the North Country of New York State there could be a number of reasons for the high unemployment rates in respect to the rest of the State.  One of these reasons could be the lack of large metropolitan areas that would provide a large number of jobs.  Because there is not a large population density in the North Country in general there is not as great of a need for as many jobs providing services for the higher class community like there may be in an urban landscape.  Manufacturing jobs have been decreasing in the North Country in some places like Massena, with closing of the General Motors plant and Rouses Point and Chazy with the closing of one Ayrest plant and the large downsizing of another.  These layoffs have left many people who had been working there for many years without jobs and no job training in other fields. 

                When you begin to look at the areas around New York City it is apparent that the outlying counties around the central city all have lower unemployment rates then counties in other areas.  This is clear evidence that people who are working in New York City are living in the surrounding counties.  These are people who are most likely making a decent amount of money working in the city and travel from areas like Westchester, Putnam, and Rockland Counties to the North and Suffolk and Nassau County to the East.  This leaves the lower income people who don’t have jobs to live in the inner city.  This explains why the county with the highest unemployment rate is the Bronx and is located directly in the heart of New York City. 

                Tompkins County is surrounded by counties with unemployment rates around 9-10 percent which would make it seem strange why Tompkins is so much lower with 6.5.  However within Tompkins County is the city of Ithaca and a number of different colleges.  In Tompkins County there is Tompkins Cortland Community College, Ithaca College, and Cornell to name a few.  The presence of these colleges clearly brings in a lot of jobs for teachers as well as other jobs to provide services for the large influx of students during the seasons that college is in session.  So the existence of these colleges greatly reduces the unemployment rates within Tompkins County.