Buffalo Niagara unemployment remains at historic lows

The region’s unemployment rate remained at historically low levels during May even though the pace of job creation has cooled slightly over the past three months, new data from the state Labor Department showed Wednesday.

The jobless rate across Erie and Niagara counties stood at 3.1% in May, down slightly from 3.2% a year ago.

The report showed that the region’s labor force has expanded over the past year, with nearly 5,000 people joining the worker pool over the past year – an increase of just under 1%.

Those new workers generally were able to find jobs, as competition for available labor remains intense. The number of people who are employed also rose by 5,000, roughly matching the increase in the labor force, the report found.

As a result, the number of people who are actively looking for a job but can’t find one has barely budged over the past year, dipping by 100 people to 17,100 in May, the report said.

“It’s still hard for employers to find workers,” said Timothy Glass, the labor department’s regional economist in Buffalo.

That is forcing employers to make do with the workers that they have, potentially asking them to work longer hours or converting part-time jobs into full-time positions, Glass said.

“You’re seeing employers trying to find different and unique ways of trying to extend the people they have – maybe overtime or whatever,” Glass said. “They’re also still trying to find people. But if you can’t do it, you have to work with what you have.”

The result is that the unemployment rate during May was the second lowest for any month in the last 33 years – and probably longer than that. It was the lowest unemployment rate for any May dating back to at least 1990. The only other month where unemployment was lower than May’s 3.1% rate was in April, when the jobless rate…