Not Adding Value: NYC's Unemployment Rate Rises To 10%

Mayor Bloomberg likes to make the people who live and work in his fiefdom live and die by the data.

Well, here's some data that ought to disturb him - the unemployment rate in NYC is the highest it's been since the worst of the recession:

New York City’s unemployment rate climbed to 10 percent in June, equaling the highest level it reached during the recession, even as employers continued hiring at a healthy pace, the State Labor Department reported on Thursday.

Though city officials make almost daily pronouncements about how impressively the city’s economy has rebounded from the long recession, the unemployment rate has returned to the peak it held for six months, from fall 2009 until February 2010. The last time it was higher was 19 years ago, when it was 10.1 percent, said James P. Brown, principal economist for the department.

The June rate was up from 9.7 percent in May, and it translated to more than 397,000 unemployed city residents, according to state data. That total was within 2,000 of the highest number of jobless city residents at any time in 37 years of record keeping, the numbers showed.

The unemployment rate worsened again despite a gain of 11,500 jobs last month, Mr. Brown said. That increase was modest compared with the strong gains of recent months but was about average for the last 10 Junes, he said.

...

Labor union officials have said the bigger problem is that most of the new jobs are in industries that pay low wages, like retailing and janitorial work. They have been pushing for several months in Albany for an increase in the state’s minimum wage, which has been $7.25 an hour since 2009.

I know what will fix this problem.

Let's close schools and fire teachers.

Of course the unemployment increase is not Bloomberg's fault.

Nothing is his fault.

So it must be the fault of unions and public schools.