OC Jobless Rate Falls to 2.5%

Orange County’s unemployment rate dropped to 2.5% in March, down from February’s 2.7% and identical to the rate recorded a year earlier.

In all, 35,200 county residents were counted as unemployed and seeking work, the state Employment Development Department reported.

That is almost unchanged from the 35,300 jobless tallied in March, 1989, but down from the 37,600 unemployed job seekers recorded in February.

The major gain in employment was reported in the services industries, where employers in the county added 3,800 workers to their payrolls.

Reflecting an apparent local bottoming out of the aerospace and computer industry slumps, high-technology manufacturing, which includes aerospace, computer and office equipment and electronic instruments manufacturers, was down only 100 employees for the month, the EDD reported.

Other employment gains were recorded in the wholesale trades, up 500; retail trades, up 400, and the finance, insurance and real estate industry, up 500.

The county’s 2.5% jobless rate remained the lowest in Southern California and the lowest of any of the state’s large urbanized counties.

Of the larger counties, only predominantly residential Marin and San Mateo counties in Northern California had lower March jobless rates, at 2.4% each.

During the past year, the total number of full- and part-time jobs at businesses in Orange County has increased by 21,600 to 1.22 million for an annual growth rate of 1.8%.