Recession Stunts Job Growth in O.C. : Work: Led by drops in construction and manufacturing, the number of jobs declined 0.8% last month compared to March, 1990.

Despite a seasonal hiring spurt in March that boosted total employment in Orange County by 0.3% for the month, the total number of jobs in the county shrank slightly from a year earlier, state employment officials said Thursday.

The decline of 0.8%, led by steep drops in construction and manufacturing employment, marked the second consecutive month that the year-to-year job tally for the county dropped. The last time such a drop occurred was in 1983. And now, as then, the decline accompanies an economic recession.

For the next several months, however, seasonal hiring in agriculture and services is expected to bolster employment locally, keeping the county among the least affected in the state.

“But on a year-to-year comparison, the numbers will be down in the dumpster” because employment was growing last year, said economist James Doti, head of business forecasting at the Chapman College Center for Economic Research in Orange.

While the 0.8% decrease in jobs from March to March was slight, the figures do show the human impact of recession: An 0.8% decrease means a loss of nearly 30,000 jobs.

March’s 4.7% unemployment rate--virtually unchanged from 4.8% in February--means that 65,000 county residents were counted among the unemployed, up from 35,300 in March, 1990, when the county’s unemployment rate was a mere 2.8%.

There also were 9,400 fewer jobs in the county than a year earlier as the weak economy forced employers to trim payrolls and, in some cases, close.

The statistics support area economists’ predictions that 1991 will be a year of little or no job growth in the county after nearly a decade of substantial growth, said Eleanor Jordan, state labor market analyst for Orange County.

Jordan said she is predicting a growth rate of less than 1% this year while economists at UC Irvine earlier this week predicted a 1.1% hike in total jobs in the county for 1991.

Economists at Chapman College were more pessimistic, predicting in their annual economic forecast in December that the number of jobs in the county would increase only 0.1% this year. In all, Jordan reported, there were 1.214 million jobs in the county last month, up from 1.210 million in February but down from 1.224 million a year earlier.

Unemployment on the Rise Orange County’s unemployment rate, the fourth lowest in the state, remained virtually unchanged in March. Other counties with lower rates were Alpine, 3%, Marin, 3.8%, and San Mateo, 3.9%. In Los Angeles County, the March jobless rate was 6.9%. Percentage of the work force unemployed by month: March 1991: 4.7% December 1987: 2.5 January 1983: 9.4 December 1982: 8.1 January 1982: 5.9 March 1981: 4.4 Source: California Employment Development Department JOB GROWTH Jobs in the county declined 0.8% in March from the previous March, marking the biggest drop since the depths of the last recession. In percentage change from previous year. ‘80: +5.8 ‘81: +3.3 ‘82: -0.4 ‘83: -0.8 ‘84: +9.6 ‘85: +5.6 ‘86: +4.1 ‘87: +4.7 ‘88: +4.9 ‘89: +5.7 ‘90: +2.2 ‘91: -0.8