Unemployment has decreased 1.4 percentage points from January to February to 8.2%, though the percentage of unemployed county residents is still 2.4 percentage points higher than the 5.8% unemployment rate in February 2020.

The decrease in unemployment isn’t due to that many more people returning to work. The number of employed county residents only increased by 100 people from January (48,100) to February (48,200), meaning the bulk of the unemployment rate decline is due to fewer people being in the labor pool in February (52,500) than there were in January (53,200). Chautauqua County’s decrease in the labor force is in contrast to the state, which saw more people seeking work in February.

There were 800 fewer unemployed county residents in February (4,300) than there were in January (5,100). Seasonal unemployment is still higher this year than it was last year, when 3,100 county residents were unemployed.

All of those statistics say Chautauqua County’s economy has a long way to go to rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic. Unemployment reached a high of 17.9% in April 2020, so February’s unemployment rate is a far cry from the heights of the pandemic. Even so, the 8.2% February unemployment rate is the highest February unemployment rate since 2010.

Last week, the state Labor Department announced its February jobs report. Chautauqua County’s status as the hardest-hit rural county in the state didn’t change from January to February. The February Labor Department figures show Chautauqua County lost 4,300 jobs from February 2020 to February 2021, or 8.7% of its jobs. As a percentage among rural counties, only Montgomery, Otsego, Seneca and Columbia counties fared worse than Chautauqua County.

An Empire Center analysis of the state’s February jobs report New York has been particularly hard-hit by the pandemic. New York’s private job count as of February was 12.2% percent below the level of a year earlier, according to a March 29 blog post by E.J. McMahon, Empire Center for Public Policy founder and senior fellow. That was twice the national net decline of 6% and is worse than any state except Hawaii (-19.7%) and just ahead of Nevada (-11%).

Much like New York state, Chautauqua County’s employment count hasn’t improved much since October.

“The latest employment data only further underscores the obvious: New York has a lot riding on the pace of business reopening and resumption of normal activities in the coming months,” McMahon wrote.