Jobs in California
signonsandiego.com
The nation's surge in jobs last month was not felt in California, where declines in high-tech and business-service jobs continued to drag down employment growth.
California added 5,200 nonfarm payroll jobs in March compared with more than 300,000 jobs in the rest of the nation, according to data released yesterday by the California Economic Development Department. If the state added jobs proportionate to its share of the nation's population, job growth would have been seven times higher.
Household data, which includes self-employed workers and farmworkers, showed a drop of 79,000 jobs during the month, partly because of seasonal agricultural patterns. The state's jobless rate jumped from 6.3 percent to 6.5 percent, meaning 1.1 million Californians were looking for work and hadn't found it.
"It's always dangerous to look at just at one month when you're judging job performance, but for the month, California's hiring has been very disappointing," said Stephen Levy of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy. "The interesting thing is that a number of California companies have been sharply increasing their profits, but they haven't really been hiring."
In Silicon Valley, for instance, corporate profits have been rising sharply. But layoffs continued last month as the Bay Area shed 5,900 jobs – the worst cumulative loss in the state.
San Diego County continued to outperform both the state and the nation. The county added 9,400 jobs last month, more than half in construction, transportation, utilities and leisure services. That was second only to Los Angeles County, which added 19,200 jobs....... |
