New York City?s unemployment rate fell to 4.1 percent in October, its lowest level in the 30 years that the current method of measuring joblessness has been used, the State Department of Labor said yesterday. Sustained hiring in several industries has reduced the number of city residents looking for work to 155,100, or about half as many as there were just four years ago, the department reported. The 4.5 percent unemployment rate reported for September matched a 30-year low.
See "City?s Unemployment Rate Falls to Its Lowest Level in 30 Years", Patrick McGeehan, The New York Times, November 16, 2006