New York City's unemployment rate fell two-tenths of a percentage point to 8.9 percent in December from November, but the tourism-related sector hired fewer workers than expected, labor experts said on Thursday.

December usually sees a burst of travelers visiting the city and New York City last year was the most popular place in the nation to visit, drawing 45.25 million visitors.

But the leisure and hospitality sector, though up 3.1 percent over the previous 12 months, actually shrank by 100 workers from November to December. We didn't get as strong a Christmas as some might have imagined, James Brown, a state labor market analyst, said by telephone.

Wall Street, the tap root of the economies of both New York City and New York state, hired 400 workers for a total workforce of 162,800. That is just 100 people shy of the total number of traders, salesmen and bankers employed a year-ago.

New York state's unemployment rate eased one-tenth of a percentage point to 8.2 percent in December.

(Reporting by Joan Gralla; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

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