The Daily Freeman is reporting unemployment rates in the communities of the Mid-Hudson Valley and Catskills were generally lower in October than a month earlier, and all were well below the rates reported in October 2020, when the labor market was just starting to recover from its COVID-related losses, the state Department of Labor reported November 23. The October 2021 unemployment rate in Greene County, was 4.3 percent, down from 4.5 percent in September and 5.7 percent in October 2020, according to the labor department. The jobless rate in Columbia County remained unchanged from the previous month at 3.3 percent, but was down from 4.3 percent one year before. The October rate in Ulster County was 4 percent, down from 4.2 percent in September, and in Dutchess County, the jobless rate was 3.9 percent, down from 4.2 percent the previous month. Read the full story in the Daily Freeman.