The Daily Freeman is reporting unemployment rates in the Mid-Hudson Valley and Catskills were higher in January than in December, the state Department of Labor reported March 16. The change was likely the result of a post-holiday spike in COVID-19 cases that peaked just after the start of the year, according to the Freeman. In Greene County, the jobless rate was 6.7 percent, up from 6 percent in December, but well below the April peak of 14.8 percent. Greene's unemployment rate the year before, in January 2020, was 5 percent. In Columbia County, the January rate was 5.5 percent, up from 4.5 percent in December and 3.7 percent the year before. In Ulster County the jobless rate was 6.7 percent, up from 5.4 percent in December; Dutchess County had a 6.1 percent unemployment rate in January, up from 5.4 percent in December. In January 2020, before the COVID pandemic hit, Ulster and Dutchess had unemployment rates of 4.1 percent and 3.9 percent, respectively. The highest jobless rate statewide in January was 17.1 percent in the Bronx. The lowest rate in the state was 5.3 percent in both Schenectady County and in Tompkins County, which includes the city of Ithaca. Read the full story in the Daily Freeman.