The Daily Freeman is reporting unemployment rates in the Mid-Hudson Valley and Catskills skyrocketed in April to between 11 and 15 percent, reflecting the impact of the economic slowdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The data was released by the New York Department of Labor May 27, six days after issuing a report indicating the region had tens of thousands fewer jobs in April 2020 than the year before. The unemployment rate last month in Greene County was 14.8 percent, compared to 4.4 percent in April 2019. In Columbia County the jobless rate was 10.9 percent, up from 3 percent a year earlier. In Ulster County the unemployment rate last month was 14.6 percent, compared to 3.3 percent one year ago; in Dutchess County, the jobless rate went from 3.2 percent in 2019 to 14.1 percent in April. Similar increases were reported in Orange, Sullivan and Delaware counties. Not one county in the state of New York had an unemployment rate below 10 percent last month, according to the report. The lowest rate was 10.1 percent in Tompkins County, near Ithaca, and the highest was 21.9 percent in Niagara County, in western New York. Statewide the unemployment rate last month was 15 percent, up from 3.6 percent in 2019. Read the full story in the Daily Freeman.