Sacramento region’s December jobless rate 7.9% as employers shed more workers
Sacramento’s jobless rate climbed more than a point in December from November as the pandemic-weary region shed yet more workers at year’s end.
Unemployment in the four-county Sacramento region rose to 7.9% in the final month of 2020, up from November’s 6.7% and nearly 5% higher than the same month a year earlier in 2019, according to state Employment Development Department figures released Friday — testament to the economic blows meted during a coronavirus pandemic that marked its first reported case a year ago this week.
The same sector hit hard throughout the pandemic — leisure and hospitality — led the region in job losses in December, dropping 2,900 jobs from November. Education and health services decreased by 2,400 jobs during the same 30-day stretch, nearly all of the losses felt in health care and social assistance, the EDD reported.
But the region also saw gains in retail and construction in December.
The job gains that were made were also a product of the pandemic economy. The logistics trades of transportation and warehousing added 1,300 jobs, nearly half of the 2,800 jobs in the trade, transportation and utilities sector that led the region in job growth last month.
Construction, usually an employment laggard in off-season December, also added 1,900 jobs.
Sacramento County had the region’s highest unemployment rate at 8.5%; El Dorado and Yolo counties each posted jobless rates of 7% while Placer County’s unemployment rate stood at 6.2% in December. California’s unadjusted unemployment rate was 8.8%. Nationally, the jobless rate was 6.5%. Unemployment in the Sacramento region at the same time in 2019 was 3.2%.
But the story of 2020 and the effects of COVID-19 on so many sectors of the region’s economy was writ large in the numbers released Friday.
A full 71,500 jobs were lost in the region between December 2019 and December 2020, the hardest hits absorbed by the leisure and hospitality sectors — hotels, restaurants and related food and accommodations services shut down by stay-home orders placed into effect to slow the spread of the raging virus.
In all, the leisure and hospitality sectors shed an estimated 28,400 jobs from December to December — a staggering 40% of the total jobs lost — with 80% of the sectors’ jobs among accommodations and food service workers, the EDD reported.
Other sectors from education and health services to health care and social assistance lost nearly 30,000 jobs during the same 12 months.
This story was originally published January 22, 2021 at 4:12 PM.
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