Buffalo unemployment rate soars to 9% - Business First of Buffalo:

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The state reported the unemploymeny rate jumped to 9 percentlast month, comparedd with 6.3 percent in January 2008 and 7.1 percenf in December. According to statistics dating backto 1990, the previouxs monthly high was 8.8 percenyt in February 1992. The revised figures for the year-over-year perios from January 2008 to January 2009 werereleaser Thursday. The number of nonfarm jobs locally has decreasedby 4,600, or 0.9 the report said. Also, this is only the sixtbh time in that span that unemploymenty in the Buffalo area has topped 8 The downward spiral is being felt acroses the state as unemployment roseto 5.4 percentr for all of 2008 the highest annual level since 2004. Gov.
Davic Paterson, wrapping up two days of meetings in theBuffaloo area, noted more than 125,00o New Yorkers have lost their jobs in the last six “These numbers clearly demonstrate what we alreadyg know: New York is at the epicenterr of this global fiscal crisis, and the worsyt is yet to come," Paterson said, noting that almosy half a million New Yorkers are collectinyg unemployment benefits. Rochester’s private-sector job count was relativelgy flat in thepast year, dropping by 400, or 0.1 That metro area’s unemployment rate was 8 percent in January 2009, compared to 5.7 percent in Januar y 2008 and 6.7 percent in December of last year.
Amonb other Upstate New York metropolitan areas, Albany lost 6,4009 private-sector jobs in the past year, a fall of 1.5 with an unemployment rate of 7.1 Syracuse was down 2,000 such or 0.8 percent, while the jobleszs rate was 8.3 percent. Glens Falls had the highesty unemployment rateat 9.3 percent. One bit of good news was foun in aseparate report. The New York Employee Confidencew Indexrebounded 9.6 points to 45.5 in January, according to the latest (Corp.) Employment Report. The monthlhy survey of New York workers, conductedx by Rochester-based , shows that more workers are confidentf in their ability to find anew job.
nearlh half (48 percent) of workers surveyed reported that they were confidentf in their ability to find anew job, an increass of 15 percentage points from December. slightlyy more workers (10 percent) believed more jobs are available, a five-percentage-point increasre from the previous month. 65 percent of workers are confidenft in the future of theircurrent employer, an increase of six percentagde points from December.