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NEW YORK—Facebook and Twitter, frequently used to send photos, conversation and friendship, are now “tools” of the New York State Department of Labor to reach unemployed New Yorkers find suitable jobs, as well as address the soaring unemployment rate of the city.

Patricia Smith, state labor commissioner, said the launch of a campaign to use social networking last month aims to reach out to unemployed workers and hear what has worked for them in their job searches.

“By tapping into these social-networking tools, we can potentially reach and help an even larger portion of our state’s unemployed population—immediately. And with a running dialogue between government and the people it serves, there is real potential to effect lasting, substantive change,’” Smith said.

In its September 2009 employment report, the State Department of Labor said the unemployment rate edged up to 9.8 percent from 9.7 percent in August, and the US economy shed 263,000 jobs in September. New York state’s unemployment rate on the other hand climbed from 8.6 percent in July to 9.0 percent in August 2009, its highest level since April 1983.

Statistics indicate the largest job losses were in construction, manufacturing, retail trade, publishing and government.

Smith said the Labor Department will be using Facebook, Twitter and soon YouTube to get information to the state’s unemployed. The labor commissioner said the department’s web site usually gets around 3 million hits a month while social-networking sites like Facebook get 88 million and Twitter 44.5 million.

The social networking includes up-to-the-minute employment content and will also include announcements about events like job fairs and a place for job seekers to comment on their experiences.

NY job losses to continue until 2010

According to the New York employment rate September 2009 report, the outlook for the city’s job market remains gloomy.

“Key sectors, including finance and professional services, are still shedding jobs,” the report said. “While there are some signs that the national recession may be ending, it could be well into 2010 before improved business conditions are reflected in the city’s labor market.”

Without a doubt, the report said the publishing sector in New York is operating in its “toughest economic environment” in many years. In particular, companies cutting back on advertising spending and readers increasingly turning to the Internet for free content have negatively affected the sector recently.

International communications hub New York City, home to about 1 in 12 publishing jobs in the US, has high concentrations of periodical and book publishing jobs. Throughout the Empire State, newspapers have been hit by numerous layoffs and unpaid jobs, shedding 4,300 jobs for the 12 months ending in July 2009.