Nassau Unemployment Rate Sits at 6.8 Percent, While Hempstead Town Sees Small Dip

While Nassau County's unemployment rate remained at 6.8 percent in October, the Town of Hempstead saw a very small drop in its number of job seekers.

For the past three months the County's unemployment rate has stayed at 6.8 percent, according to statistics released Thursday by the New York State Department of Labor. Last year, its unemployment rate was 7 percent.

The Town of Hempstead unemployment rate for August was 7.1 percent, a drop from 7.3 percent the year prior. The unemployment rate had been as low as 6.7 percent in April and as high as 7.9 percent in February.

"You have to keep in mind that this is the official unemployment rate. There is another unemployment rate that includes people who are working part-time involuntarily, because they can't find a full-time job, and there are the so-called discouraged workers who stopped looking for work because they couldn't find a job," said Dr. Pearl Kramer, chief economist for the Long Island Association.

"I know a lot of people who are out of work, and I have people working for me who are qualified for much better jobs," said Henry Stampfel, owner of the movie theater in Malverne and president of the Malverne Merchants and Professionals Association.

"They are using it as a job right now, but they're qualified to be teachers and have a long line of work experience," he explained.

Charles Riesterer, owner of Riesterer's Bakery and president of the West Hempstead Chamber of Commerce, speaks with business owners and other members of the West Hempstead community often.

"People are complaining," he said. "It's not getting better."

Among their gripes are that the streets in West Hempstead are as empty as Shoppers Village, the retail center in the community that closed its doors last January. They are lacking local consumers. "No one is going out, especially in the evenings," they told him. "Expenses keep going up and income gets less. It's very frightening."

Riesterer said that he has seen a few new businesses open in the community recently, including a liquor store and a cell phone retailer.

"They're not saying there's a line out the door," he said. "They're hoping they can make it."

In Malverne, the small business community hasn't experienced much change, good or bad, according to Stampfel.

"Malverne is pretty steady with its business community, but from time to time people do suffer and since we are a small business district, we all feel it," he said.

The biggest loss to Malverne's "Main Street" came about three years ago, when economic and industry factors prompted Tri-Color Photo Lab to slash its work force by about 30 or 40 employees and reduce the size of its store by half.

"There's a lot of fine tuning going on," Stampfel said. "That's what a difficult economy does. It forces people to find ways of cutting back."

Recently, the Malverne Jewish Center had to do this. Feeling the pinch, it sold its building to stay afloat and , The Bridge Church of the Nazarene.

On the state level, the unemployment rate has remained flat at 8 percent since September, however, it is down 0.2 percent from August.

"The overall report is pretty positive," said Gary Huth, regional analyst for the New York State Department of Labor. "We're doing better than the national economy. It's slow but improving. There does appear to be some degree of certainty of the viability of recovery, but the speed of the recovery is a little slower that we'd like to see."

Looking at the positives, Huth said, there are 10,900 more jobs on Long Island than there were in October 2009. Financial services, one of the hardest hit sectors, is lagging still, down 1,500 jobs compared to a year ago, he said.

"We are growing at a rate of 1.1 percent a year.  It's not gangbusters, certainly, but it's significantly better than it was earlier," Huth said. "Usually, there is some increased hiring in retail trade, though this month it's unchanged."

Surprisingly though some local retailers who are trying to hire are finding that people would rather hold out for a higher paying job than give up their unemployment insurance or welfare. Riesterer has observed this first hand.

In his bakery, he's been looking to hire people to work the counter. Those who have come in to inquire about the position have requested to be paid off the books or work unrealistic hours, he explained.

"People are saying it doesn't pay me to go to work," since they're earning more from unemployment than what they would make from the jobs that are available, he said. "It's making people lazy."

Stampfel said Mayor Patricia Norris-McDonald has been very supportive of the Malverne merchants.

"She believes the business district has to survive for the whole community to do well," he added.

He said the real determining factor of whether local businesses succeed though is whether or not the consumers support them.

"Use your business districts," he urged.  "Don't go right to the mall if you know that a local merchant carries what you're looking for."

He also said you shouldn't be afraid to give constructive criticism to local merchants.

"If they aren't doing something correctly, let them know why you choose to run to the mall all the time," Stampfel said. "Ultimately, you don't want to see these businesses close."

Labor force statistics, including the unemployment rate, for New York and every other state are based on statistical regression models specified by the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Jaime Sumersille and Carisa Giardino contributed to this article.