New York state's economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic continued to be more sluggish than the rest of the country as the jobless rate fell last month from 6.9% to 6.6%, according to state labor officials on Thursday. 

The state added 24,200 private-sector jobs, the Department of Labor said. 

The topline numbers released by the state Department of Labor do not reflect the potential impact, if any, of the new omicron variant of COVID-19, which was first confirmed a day after Thanksviging. 

The national unemployment rate by comparison in November stood at 4.2%. Still, New York picked up more private-sector jobs than the nation as a whole, reporting a 0.3% increase compared to the 0.2% rise across the country in November. 

New York shed an estimated 2 million jobs in the early weeks of the pandemic, many of them in the hospitality and tourism sector. 

The jobless picture also remains an uneven one across New York: In New York City, the unemployment rate stands at 9%, down from 9.4% in October. Outside of New York City, unemployment fell from 5% to 4.8%.