ALBANY COUNTY — As New York State set another record for testing, hot spots with COVID-19 clusters continued to be a problem on Saturday.

Albany County reported 23 new cases of COVID-19, 13 of them associated with the University at Albany.

The state comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli, released a report on job losses, focusing on New York City restaurants.

In April, restaurant employment in New York City dropped to 91,000 jobs as restrictions were imposed on businesses, the report says. The city’s restaurants in 2019 had provided 317,800 jobs, paid $10.7 billion in total wages citywide, and delivered nearly $27 billion in taxable sales.

Taxable sales for the city’s restaurant industry fell by 71 percent during March, April, and May compared to a year earlier, the report said.

“Restaurants reflect our diversity, employing tens of thousands of immigrants and providing a range of options fitting for a world-class metropolis,” said DiNapoli in a statement, releasing the report.

The restaurant industry accounted for about one in 12 private-sector jobs and establishments citywide in 2019. The vast majority of the city’s restaurants and bars are small businesses, and 80 percent have fewer than 20 employees.

Besides just restaurants, job losses caused by the COVID-19 recession are concentrated in the lower-paid sector.

New Yorkers making low wages continue to suffer a disproportionate share of job losses statewide and especially in New York City, DiNapoli found.

Among the nearly 1.3 million net jobs the state lost from March through August, more than 320,000 were in hotels and food services. These losses represented 41 percent of jobs in the industry before the recession hit, and one in every four jobs lost in all sectors statewide.

Workers in food and accommodation services are disproportionately likely to be Black or Hispanic, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The average annual wage in 2019 for hotel and restaurant workers was $30,689, less than half the overall average for the state of $75,367.

Retail trade, another sector with comparatively low wages, lost 93,000 jobs, one in every 10 of its previous total.

By contrast, finance and insurance employment, among the highest paid jobs in New York State, declined by 19,000 or 3.7 percent. Professional services positions, another higher-paid sector, saw a decline of 60,000 or 8.6 percent.

Newest numbers

Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Saturday that 11 million COVID-19 diagnostic tests have now been conducted in New York State, and another record was set Friday with 134,267 test results reported.

Hot spots continue in Rockland and Orange counties as well as in Brookly and Queens in New York City. Among the 20 ZIP codes considered to be hot spots, a ZIP code in Orange County, 10950, had the highest percentage of positive test results: a 14-day average of 17.10 percent.

Altogether the 20 ZIP codes had a positivity rate of 5.2 percent. The rest of the state had a rate of 1.01 percent. Statewide, the rate is 1.29 percent.

Based on Friday’s test results, the Capital Region, of which Albany County is a part, had a rate of 0.8 percent. Five of the state’s 10 regions had rates of 1 percent or higher: Long Island, Mid-Hudson, New York City, the Southern Tier, and Western New York.

The North Country was tied with the Mohawk Valley for the lowest rate: 0.3 percent.

Albany County currently has 3,032 confirmed cases of COVID-19. Of the 23 new cases, 19 had close contact with someone infected with the disease, one is a healthcare worker or resident of a congregate setting, one reported out-of-state travel, and two did not have a clear source of transmission detected at this time. 

As of Saturday morning, 968 Albany County residents are under quarantine.The five-day average for new daily positives has increased to 17.6 from 14.8 on Friday.

There are now 99 active cases in Albany County, up from 98. So far, 12,715 people have completed quarantine. Of those who completed quarantine, 2,933 of them had tested positive and recovered.  

Four county residents are hospitalized due to the virus, with one of them in an intensive-care unit. The county’s hospitalization rate has decreased to 0.13 percent from 0.16 percent on Friday.

Albany County’s COVID-19 death toll remains at 135.