The unemployment rate in Brookhaven has fallen for most of 2011, and in September it became eight out of nine months that the year-over-year rate has dropped. Along with this trend, however, is the continued decrease in the number of employed.
In September of 2010 the Brookhaven jobless rate sat at 7.4 percent while the number of employed was at 237,000. This September saw an unemployment rate of 7.1 percent, but the number of employed decreased to 233,000.
The trend is a when the year-over-year unemployment rate fell from 7.7 to 7.4 but once again, around 4,000 fewer were working. Michael Crowell, labor economist with the New York State Department of Labor, told Patch last month that this is caused by, among other things, people "finding jobs out of the region."
