California’s unemployment numbers are in. How do they rank nationally?
California’s unemployment, already among the country’s highest, inched up last month to 5.4%, the second highest rate in the nation, according to new data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics..
The state figure was well above the national rate of 4.1%. Only Nevada, at 5..7%, was higher. South Dakota’s 1.9% rate was the lowest.
The October California rate was up from 5.3% in September and 5.1% a year earlier.
What was striking to some analysts was that the state lost 5,500 payroll jobs during October, according to the state Employment Development Department, which compiles the data.
Nationally, the job market was in a virtual standstill last month, showing a gain of only 12,000 new payroll jobs.
But “this number was skewed by the impact of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, and the unemployment accompanying these hurricanes, as well as the Boeing Strike, said Michael Bernick, former EDD director and now an employment attorney at Duane Morris LLP
“California’s payroll job losses reflect neither of these impacts,” he said.
Mark Schniepp, director of the Santa Barbara-based California Economic Forecast, had a different take.
The California rate is “still low,” he said. He said it’s edged up because of more immigrants entering into the California labor force faster than they can be absorbed into the workforce.
The state rate, he said, is “not that big of an issue.”
Better job news
There was some good news. There were gains in California in five of 11 job areas, notably in health care. Transportation and utility jobs were up for the eighth straight month, as firms prepared for the holiday season.
Biggest losses were in professional and business services.
EDD said that was because of “employment services as well as waste management and remediation services moving against their recent trends of gains, along with a potential hiring slowdown across the industry.”
Government employment in California was also down, largely because of state government job losses.
The state’s unemployment rates have been higher than the nation’s for some time, usually because of lags in sophisticated technology employment and job losses in rural areas, according to the UCLA Anderson fall forecast. Housing’s struggles have also meant a sluggish job market.
Among the slower growth areas have been Silicon Valley, San Francisco and San Diego, because of the technology sector.
Also contributing to the higher jobless rate is what UCLA called “unusual winter weather” in the San Joaquin Valley.
.jpg)