The local unemployment rate isn't nearly as high as the record number of 1992.
But, reality is, the numbers are up there.

According to a PIX11 broadcast report by James Ford, there are 335,000 persons living in all five boroughs that simply can't find any work.

The state reported a jump from January to February as the single biggest on record from 6.9 percent to 8.1.
That rate matched the national unemployment rate for the month and reflected a one-year increase from 4.4 percent a year earlier. The breakdown of the city’s job market has erased the notion that the greater NYC region could be insulated from the sleu of job losses occuring across the U.S.

In a recent New York Times report filed by Patrick McGeehan, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the city was expanding services to help residents find new jobs.

“While the city’s unemployment rate has been much higher in past recessions, the rise in February’s rate reflects what I hear from New Yorkers in the subway and on neighborhood streets: People are hurting, and they are worried about losing their jobs or struggling to find new ones,” Bloomberg said in the Times report.

With that said, news of the city's unemployment numbers came on the heels of the National Urban League's State of Black America report, which clearly stated in lieu of progress represented by the election of the first Black president, African Americans are twice as likely to be unemployed, three times as likely to live in poverty and more than six times as likely to be incarcerated.
"We have to be more specific," said Marc Morial, president and CEO of the 99-year-old Urban League.

"The issue is not only (Blacks) doing better, but in closing these persistent gaps in statistics in this country," Morial told The Associated Press. "Our index shows that the gap in African-American status is about 71 percent that of white Americans. We will not rest until that number is at 100, and there is no gap."

So what do we do?

New York employment numbers are high. And the likeliness that a huge percentage of that number consisting of African Americans and or Hispanics causes a certain level of distress.

Minority officials here and in Albany should make sure by any means necessary when the federal stimulus money is transferred to New York that minority numbers should not be taken in vain.

Funds should go toward "green" job training programs, increase the level of positions within the city's public education system and improve the infrastructure of the city in its roads, streets and mass transit system - yeah including MTA.

Filling these gaps and reviving the city's employment numbers will be a task for Mayor Bloomberg and all involved. But when the job gets done and cash begins to flow - bosses should remember not to layoff diversity.