LABOR

UNEMPLOYMENT RATE IN NEW YORK RISES TO 5.2%

New York State’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose to 5.2% in September, up from 4.7% in August, state Labor Department officials reported yesterday.

A department spokesman, Robert Lillpopp, said the increase in the unemployment rate wasn’t caused by severe job losses in any one sector, but was driven by the fact that more people were officially looking for work.

In fact, the private sector grew by 7,000 in September and the state unemployment rate in September of last year was 5.6%.

“In addition, our seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was still at its lowest September level since 2000,” the director of the department’s research and statistics division, David Trzaskos, said. The September 2000 unemployment figure was 4.5%.The national unemployment rate in September of this year was 5.1%.

– Associated Press

PUBLISHING

MCGRAW-HILL THIRD-QUARTER PROFIT RISES 18%

McGraw-Hill, the second largest American educational publisher, said third-quarter profit rose 18% as revenue from textbooks increased and the company’s Standard & Poor’s unit rated more non-U.S. debt. Net income rose to $381.3 million, or $1 a share, from $324.5 million, or 85 cents, in the year-ago period, McGraw-Hill said yesterday. Sales climbed 15% to $1.98 billion. The earnings beat a 96-cent average estimate of 10 analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.

“They’re having a spectacular year in educational publishing, and S &P keeps plugging along,” said Peter Appert, an analyst at Goldman Sachs, who has an “in line” rating on the shares and doesn’t own any. “This is the ninth quarter in a row these guys have beaten expectations.”

The company’s chief executive, Harold McGraw, has spent $455 million this year on six acquisitions, including market research company J.D. Power & Associates, to trim the company’s dependence on advertising sales in publications such as Business Week magazine. Mr. McGraw said in an interview yesterday that the company’s expectation of “double-digit” earnings growth for the year is “well intact.”

– Bloomberg News

TECHNOLOGY

GOOGLE EARNINGS INCREASE SEVENFOLD

SAN FRANCISCO – Google’s rapidly rising profits soared to new heights in the third quarter as its Internet-leading search engine churned out a sevenfold earnings increase that blew past analyst expectations. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company said yesterday that it made $381.2 million, or $1.32 per share, during the three months ended in September. That compared with net income of $52 million, or 19 cents a share, a year ago.

– Associated Press

IN BRIEF

Pfizer said yesterday its third-quarter earnings plunged 52% and a sluggish sales outlook for key drugs like pain reliever Celebrex and Viagra prompted it to cut profit estimates for this year and withdraw guidance beyond that. Its shares slumped to their lowest level in almost a decade … The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage in America rose to 6.1% this week, the sixth straight increase and the highest since July 2004, according to Freddie Mac … UPS said third-quarter profit rose 7.1% as companies moved more goods by air and shipments from China increased 34%.

– Bloomberg News and Associated Press