The Daily Freeman is reporting unemployment rates across the Mid-Hudson and Catskills region were slightly higher in December 2017 than during the previous year. The state Department of Labor reported January 23, that Columbia County's jobless rate remains low -- tied for the third lowest rate statewide -- at 3.8 percent, but slightly higher than the county's rate of 3.6 percent in December 2016. The unemployment rate reported in Greene County was 5.5 percent, up from 5 percent in December 2016. Jobless rates in Dutchess and Ulster counties were up slightly during the same period. The highest unemployment rate in the state last month was 11.3 percent in Hamilton County, in the Adirondacks, 1.5 percentage points higher than the county’s December 2016 rate. Read the full story in the Daily Freeman.