ALBANY COUNTY — New York’s labor force has decreased in the last decade while the rest of the nation’s has increased.

 The state’s workforce rebounded in the second half of the last decade before dropping significantly with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report released this week by the state’s comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli.

New York, with one of the country’s largest workforces, continued to lose workers in 2021 when the rest of the nation began to recover.

Even as New York’s workforce began growing in 2022, it is still 400,000 workers below the state’s December 2019 peak, the report says.

“New York’s labor force is the backbone of our state’s economy, and its strength has been its diversity, high levels of education and unionization,” DiNapoli said in a statement releasing the report. “But my report shows troubling long-term trends were exacerbated by the pandemic and may be impeding New York’s recovery.

“Challenges may lie ahead that could negatively affect economic growth and state and local tax collections. Policymakers must give attention to policies that foster labor participation and encourage workforce development.”

New York’s workforce was 1 percent smaller in 2021 than it was in 2011, says the report, “New York Labor Force: Assessing 10-Year Trends and Pandemic Setbacks.”

In contrast, the workforce in the rest of the nation increased by 5.1 percent in this period. New York’s workforce decline is due, in part, to population decline as well as a smaller share of New Yorkers working.

The only group that has realized significant population and labor force growth over the past decade is the group over the age of 65, the report says, suggesting that many of the elderly may have put off retirement or decided to return to the workforce.

Only three of the 10 regional labor market regions of New York —  Long Island, New York City, and the Hudson Valley — were larger in 2021 than they were in 2011. Even before the pandemic, over half of the regions were losing workers. Regions with the largest labor force decreases also experienced the greatest population declines.

In 2021, the state’s unemployment rate, of 6.9 percent, was third highest in the nation mostly because of the high unemployment rate in New York City.

In addition to these workers, underemployed workers, who are discouraged; marginally attached to the labor force; or underutilized, working part-time involuntarily, comprised a larger share (5.3 percent) of the New York workforce in 2021 than in the rest of the nation (4.2 percent). Of the underemployed, almost three-quarters were involuntary part-time workers.

New York’s labor force participation rate is among the lowest in the nation, ranked 40th, averaging over 2 percentage points less than the rest of the country in the last decade, the report says.

There are more women as a share of the workforce in New York, at 47.6 percent, than the rest of the nation, at 46.9 percent, the report says, but women’s participation rate is lower in New York, at 54.1 percent, than in the rest of the nation, at 56.2 percent.

In 2020, more men left the workforce than women.

New York’s workforce is more diverse than the rest of the nation, the report says. Labor force participation in New York is lowest for African Americans and decreased steadily from 2014 to a low of 55 percent in 2020, rebounding in 2021 but still well below 2011 levels.

In contrast, participation rates were highest for Hispanics or Latinos at just over 61 percent on average over the 10-year period, who were the only group for whom participation rates did not decline during the pandemic.

New York’s workforce is more highly educated than the nation’s, the report says, with 50.6 percent of those aged 25 and over holding a bachelor’s degree or higher compared to 43.3 percent nationwide.

The labor force for this group grew by over 100,000 workers in 2020 alone, and increased 26.3 percent between 2011 and 2021. In contrast, both the population and labor force declined across all other education levels.

Union members represented 10.3 percent of all employed workers nationwide in 2021, down from 11.8 percent in 2011. In New York, the 22.2 percent of employed workers that were members of unions was the second highest in the nation. Hawaii had the highest union membership, at 22.4 percent, while South Carolina had the lowest, at 1.7 percent.

In New York, two-thirds of public-sector employees were union members, compared to 13 percent of private sector workers. For both sectors, the level of membership is down from a decade ago, with the biggest decline in the public-sector membership, 5.5 percentage points lower.

“Employment is a good indicator of the health of an economy, but it is only half the picture,” the report concludes, with labor-force statistics completing the picture.

“New York has a well-educated workforce with an increasing share achieving a four-year degree or higher, an encouraging characteristic in a skills-based economy,” the report says. “Well-educated workers were also able to better weather the pandemic as they were more able to telecommute.

“However, New York has lost workers at the lower educational levels. These include not only salespersons, waitstaff and grocery clerks, but also tradespersons such as electricians, plumbers and mechanics. Shortages of these workers can adversely impact the state’s economy.”

Even before the pandemic, the report reiterates, New York’s workforce was shrinking both because of population decline and also because a smaller share of New Yorkers were working.

“Shrinkage of the workforce and populations in many regions of New York pose challenges to achieving overall economic growth in these areas and ensuring the long-term vitality of local communities,” the report says. “This trend could also result in fiscal and budgetary issues for the State and local governments.”

The report’s final thought is this: “While New York’s labor force is large, diverse and well-educated, attention should be paid to its underlying structure to attract and retain workers. To grow and maintain a healthy economy, New York must be able to create good jobs for all its residents.”

Pension fund

Also this week, DiNapoli announced that the estimated value of the New York State Common Retirement Fund was $233.2 billion at the end of the second quarter of the state’s fiscal year. For the three-month period ending Sept. 30, fund investments returned an estimated -3.85 percent.

“The recent volatility in the markets and concerns over the state of the economy have hit investors hard,” DiNapoli said in a statement, releasing the estimated value. “Inflation and supply chain issues are continuing to impact the financial world and we expect a challenging investment environment for the foreseeable future. Still, the Fund is highly diversified and built to weather the ups and downs of the markets. Our pensioners and members can remain confident that their benefits are safe.”

The fund’s value reflects retirement and death benefits of $3.7 billion paid out during the quarter. Its audited value was $272.1 billion as of March 31, 2022, the end of the state fiscal year.

As of Sept. 30, the fund had 42 percent of its assets invested in publicly traded equities. The remaining fund assets by allocation are invested in cash, bonds, and mortgages (23 percent), private equity (15 percent), real estate and real assets (14 percent) and credit, absolute return strategies, and opportunistic alternatives (6 percent).

The fund’s long-term expected rate of return is 5.9 percent.

Every three years, the fund is required to undergo an independent Fiduciary and Conflict of Interest Review. The review, most recently performed by Kroll LLC, found the fund “continues to be a leader amongst its peers for management and operational transparency.”

Albany County COVID numbers

This week, Albany County’s 142nd of dealing with the coronavirus, the governor’s office reported three more Albany County residents had succumbed to the virus: Two COVID-related deaths were reported on Nov. 23, and one was reported on Nov. 29.

However, the county’s dashboard, as of Tuesday, Nov. 29, still shows a death toll of 600: 290 males and 310 females.

For the fourth week in a row, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have designated Albany County as having a medium community level of COVID-19. The county had been at a medium level for 13 weeks before being labeled “high” for five weeks.

The weekly metrics the CDC used to determine the current medium level are: Albany County now has a case rate of about 51 per 100,000 of population, down from 76 last week and 104the week before, and a COVID hospital admission rate of 14.6 per 100,000, about the same as last week. Also, the county has 5.2 percent of its staffed hospital beds filled with COVID patients, down from 5.7 last week and 6.3 the week before.

As of Nov. 28, according to Albany County’s COVID dashboard, the seven-day average for hospitalized COVID patients was 21.29, up slightly from 19.86 last week, but down from 25.57 two weeks ago and 36.43 three weeks ago. Eleven weeks ago, the county’s seven-day average for hospitalized residents was 15.14.

About 36.7 percent of the Capital Region residents hospitalized with COVID this week were not admitted because of having the virus, according to a chart from the governor’s office.

Nationwide, 4 percent of counties are now labeled “high” while 18 percent are “medium” — both slight increases from last week — and 78 percent are “low,” down from 80 percent last week.

In New York State, just two counties are labeled “high” — Queens and the Bronx — while about half are “low,” including all but one, Rensselaer, surrounding Albany County, and the rest are “medium.”

Although figures on infection rates are no longer reliable since tracing and tracking systems have been disbanded, the state dashboard shows that cases statewide and in Albany County are continuing to level off and even drop after two months of climbing.

Albany County, as a seven-day average, now has 8.6 cases per 100,000 of population, up slightly from 8.0 last week but down from 10.6 two weeks ago and a sharp decrease from 15.2 three weeks ago, which was a fairly steady decrease from 21.8 cases per 100,000 sixteen weeks ago.

This compares with 18.4 cases per 100,000 statewide, which is down slightly from 19.0 last week and 18.8 two weeks ago and down from 20.9 two weeks ago and from 20.1 three weeks ago, which was another fairly steady decrease from and from 30.03 per 100,000 of population 14 weeks ago.

The lowest rates are in Central New York at 6.58 cases per 100,000 population. The highest count is now on Long Island at 23.93.

The numbers for vaccination in Albany County have hardly budged for several months.

As of Tuesday, 61.5 percent of eligible residents had received booster shots, according to the state’s dashboard. At the same time, 75.5 percent of county residents had completed a vaccination series, the same as it has been for weeks.

This compares with 79.9 percent of New Yorkers statewide completing a vaccination series, which has gone up slightly every week for the last five weeks, when it was 79.1 percent.

The shift in the prevalence of Omicron sublineages has continued this week.

The once-dominant BA.5 now makes up about 19 percent of new COVID cases nationwide, with BQ.1.1 at about 29 percent and BQ.1 at about 28 percent.

In Region 2 — New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands — the spread of the new sublineages is even more pronounced.

For the week between Nov. 20 and 26, BA.5 now makes up just roughly 10 percent of the cases while BQ.1 is now dominant at roughly 37 percent followed by BQ.1.1 at 34 percent.

BF.5 makes up 10 percent and BF.7 accounts for 5 percent of new cases while newcomer XBB makes up 5 percent; the other sublineages each make up 3 percent or less.

The bivalent booster shot was designed to combat BA.4, which is now almost nonexistent, and BA.5 — and so may still be effective against its similarly highly contagious descendants.

New Yorkers are being encouraged by the state’s health department to get bivalent COVID-19 vaccine boosters from Pfizer-BioNTech for anyone age 5 or older and from Moderna for those 6 or older.

To schedule an appointment for a booster, New Yorkers are to contact their local pharmacy, county health department, or healthcare provider; visit vaccines.gov; text their ZIP code to 438829, or call 1-800-232-0233 to find nearby locations.