The Daily Freeman is reporting unemployment rates in Mid-Hudson counties were much lower in Dec. 2014 than in the same month a year earlier, the state Department of Labor reported Tue., Jan. 27. Columbia County had the region’s lowest jobless rate last month, at 4.5 percent, compared to 5.3 percent in December 2013. In Greene Co., the unemployment rate was 6 percent during the same period, compared to 7.2 percent in 2013. The statewide unemployment rate last month was 5.5 percent. In December 2013, it was 6.4 percent. The New York county with the lowest unemployment rate last month was Tompkins (in the Ithaca area), at 3.5 percent. The highest county jobless rate was in the Bronx, at 9.3 percent. Read the full story in the Daily Freeman.