ALBANY — New York's unemployment rate jumped in February to its highest level since June 1993, rising to 7.8 percent from 7 percent in January, the state labor department said Thursday.

That compares to just 4.6 percent in February 2008.

In New York City, the February rate was 8.1 percent —up from 6.9 percent in January and 4.4 percent a year earlier. Those are the highest numbers in the city since 2003.

Outside New York City, the rate stands at 7.6 percent, up from 4.8 percent last year and a 25-year high, said Peter Neenan, director of the Division of Research and Statistics.

"In the past six months, the state has lost almost 150,000 private-sector jobs," Neenan said.

The losses are fairly widespread and "the pace has definitely picked up in the last month," said James Brown, the department's New York City labor market analyst.

In addition to Wall Street and commercial banking job losses, "we're also taking significant losses in what we call the 'business and professional sector,' which includes lawyers, accountants, architects, and temp work agencies," said Brown.

Brown also said this month's data shows a particular weakness in areas that typically do better in the spring — such as construction, leisure and hospitality and retail trade.

Among individual counties, Lewis County again had the highest rate at 12.8 percent. The lowest rate — 5.9 percent — was in Tompkins County, up from 5.6 percent the previous month.

The largest drop statewide came from the trade, transportation and utilities sector, which lost more than 46,000 jobs between February 2008 and February 2009. Those losses were concentrated in retail trade, analysts said. Another 32,000 jobs were lost in the professional and business services.

The state's numbers come as the U.S. Labor Department announced that the number of people who are continuing to claim jobless benefits increased for the 10th straight week. New claims for unemployment benefits last week rose to a seasonally adjusted 652,000 from the previous week's 644,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. That brought the total number of people claiming benefits to 5.56 million, the highest total on records dating back to 1967.

Gov. David Paterson on Tuesday ordered layoffs that could total about 4 percent of state workers in departments he controls, or about 8,900 people. The announcement came after unions refused concessions and word that the state's deficit would rise to $16 billion in the next year.

Still, there are some areas seeing job growth, including health and education services, said Brown. Educational and health services added the most jobs — some 24,000 — over the one-year period. Most of those jobs were added in health care and social assistance.

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