Hurricane Sandy wiped out nearly 30,000 jobs in and around New York City last month, the New York State Labor Department said on Thursday.
The impact of the storm on small businesses and larger companies whose offices could not reopen for weeks afterward left New York City and the state with fewer jobs in November than in October. But the Labor Department also reported that the unemployment rates, which are calculated from a separate survey of employers, fell significantly last month.
New York City's unemployment rate dropped to 8.8 percent from 9.2 percent in October, and the statewide unemployment rate declined to 8.3 percent from 8.7 percent. Both are still higher than the national unemployment rate, which was 7.7 percent in November.
In New York City, restaurants and food-service operations in Lower Manhattan were hit particularly hard, said James Brown, principal economist for the Labor Department. He said the leisure an d hospitality sector lost about 8,500 jobs in November, a month when those businesses would normally be adding workers.
“Restaurant closings and layoffs were widespread in impacted neighborhoods, and the relocation of workers from damaged downtown office buildings is hurting holiday catering and corporate cafeterias,†Mr. Brown said.
He said that construction also suffered as many work sites were shut down. The shuttering of office buildings caused some companies to let go temporary workers, he added.
Still, over the past year, New York City has added about 67,100 private-sector jobs. That gain represents a growth rate of 2 percent, slightly higher than the national job gain of 1.8 percent in the past year, he said.
