Jobless Rate at 6.9% After Second Drop in 2 Months : Economy: The 0.2% decrease in unemployment in March may signal that the recession is lifting. Placement firms say there are more openings.

Ventura County’s unemployment rate dropped to 6.9% in March, the second monthly decline and a further sign that the recession is easing, state officials said Thursday.

“It seems like we’re crawling out of the mess,” said Peggy Wallace, owner of an Oxnard employment agency. “Business isn’t exactly booming, but things are picking up.”

The county’s jobless rate fell 0.2% from February. The March rate was lower than both the 7.7% state and 7.1% national unemployment rates. However, it was nearly double the 4% rate of March, 1990.

Of the county work force of 361,600, the state Employment Development Department reported 25,100 were unemployed.

State officials said indications are strong that more companies are hiring and fewer are experiencing layoffs.

Job listings at the Simi Valley unemployment office have jumped 33% since late February, while the number of people filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell 10% this month compared with last, said Pat Baldoni, employee service supervisor.

She said a modest increase in job listings for shipping and clerical workers suggests that some companies are growing. “When companies hire more support staff like that, it usually means they’re increasing productivity,” she said.

The county’s strawberry harvest provided the largest number of new jobs, boosting total agricultural employment to 15,800 in March from 14,200 in February. In March, 1990, however, the industry employed 18,700 workers.

No other industry produced more than 200 additional jobs in March, but many companies took on new employees for the first time in months or, in some instances, years.

Whittaker Electronic Resources, a Simi Valley manufacturer of communication cable systems, is expanding for the first time in three years.

Whittaker now has 125 employees after laying off 10% of its work force annually from 1988-1990, said Edwina Battle, the company’s human resources assistant. The company is hiring three assemblers for $6 to $9 an hour.

“We weren’t able to keep up with the workload with the people we had,” Battle said, “We’re more or less catching up with back orders.”

Wallace, owner of Snelling Personnel, said the number of orders that her office receives for permanent and temporary employees has nearly doubled in the last month. Besides agricultural jobs, she said, much of the increase was for real estate-related jobs with escrow, title and lending companies, reflecting the county’s 63% rise in existing single-family house sales in March compared with February.

“There are so many more signs of life, and a whole different feeling when you call companies,” Wallace said. “In December and January, it was so depressing. Everyone was laying off. Now, some people are talking about expanding.”

“We’ve seen increases pretty much across the board,” said Neil Welch, vice president of Workforce Systems, a Ventura employment service that handles technical, clerical and light industrial placements. “We’re looking for a real good summer. The indications are there.”