By Brian Bohl

Long Island created 4,100 jobs in August, bucking a nation-wide trend as U.S. employers cut 159,000 jobs in September, according to Labor Department statistics.

Though the Long Island economy has pulled ahead of the country in general, a principal economist for the state’s Department of Labor said that Long Island is still vulnerable. A local economist said that the United States has the worst market since the Great Depression and the region could feel the hit before the $700 billion federal bailout of the lending industry eases credit markets.

The U.S. economy lost jobs for the ninth consecutive month in August, while Long Island saw an increase in private sector jobs for the second consecutive month. “But Long Island’s unemployment rate increased to 5.2 percent and could surpass the six percent mark in the next year,” said Gary Huth, a principal economist for New York’s Department of Labor.

Huth said the area could continue to feel a crunch in hiring, even though it houses stable industries like defense manufacturing and information technology. Figures for September have not been released yet for the state or for Long Island.

“We’re positioned somewhat better than other areas,” Huth said. “We have industries that haven’t really been hit, but if things get bad, they are going to get bad for everybody.”

Dr. Robert Guttmann, a University economics professor, said a region can experience an uptick in jobs and unemployment simultaneously under specific circumstances.

“It does not happen a lot, but it is possible,” Guttmann said. “You can add jobs but still end up with a higher unemployment rate if the labor force also grows.”

The national unemployment rate for September was 6.1 percent. Goldman Sachs predicated jobless rates could reach 8 percent by the end of the year, which would be the highest level in 25 years.

Yet private sector jobs increased by 3,000 from July-August in New York State. Specifically, Long Island experienced a 0.4 percent increase in private sector employment. The largest increases came in the educational and health services industries, which added more than 6,000 jobs. Pearl M. Kamer, the chief economist for the independent Long Island Association, Inc., said the area continues to enjoy economic growth.

“We’re still gaining jobs on Long Island,” Kamer said. “The latest data we have is for August, and in the last 12 months ending in August, we’ve gained 7,900 jobs. The crisis on Wall Street has not yet trickled down to Main Street.”

Both Kamer and Huth said the infusion of the $700 billion emergency rescue package could ensure Wall Street’s problems won’t destroy businesses in Nassau and Suffolk counties.

“If some of these actions by the Fed take place, we could see what economists sometimes call a shallow recession,” Huth said. “Generally, our concern is our proximity to the city and how many jobs we’ll lose there. Overall, I’d say we’re better off than the rest of the country.”

Kamer, who works for an organization that consists of more than 5,000 business and civic agency groups, said the problems facing the country are more severe than the savings and loan scandals that resulted in nearly $60 billion in losses nearly 20 years ago.

While calling the current market the worst since the Great Depression, Kamer said the bailout should bring some relief. However she said it will take time before it can take effect.

“We needed the rescue package to restore confidence in credit markets and to eventually free up lending,” Kamer said. “It won’t happen tomorrow. I don’t expect credit markets to ease for quite some time.”

Guttmann called the current economic situation much worse than previous recessions and said the bailout might not be enough by itself to ignite a turnaround. The world’s central banks echoed that sentiment, lowering benchmark interest rates Wednesday to prevent credit markets from freezing. The Federal Reserve, along with the central banks in England, Sweden and Canada cut primary lending rates by a half-percentage point.

“This particular expenditure that we committed ourselves to is to revive something that has died, which is assets in the books of banks,” Guttmann said. “They are more like blood infusions into bodies whose blood has already left. It’s not the same net addition.

“It’s trying to stem the collapse and trying to reduce the damage, rather than [provide a] boost.”