County Jobless Dip Rates Short Shrift : Labor: November unemployment falls to 5.6%, but state says elimination of 1,000 jobs may have caused decline.

San Diego County’s unemployment rate dipped in November from the previous month, but state officials discounted the significance of the decline, citing possible sampling errors and the apparent elimination of 1,000 jobs from the county’s employment base, the first October-to-November jobs decline since 1962.

November’s 5.6% unemployment rate was down from the 6.3% figure in October and a slight increase from the November, 1990 rate of 5.5%, said Jack Nowell, labor market analyst with the state Employment Development Department’s San Diego office.

But Nowell said sampling “variations” can sometimes lead to inaccurate monthly unemployment figures and warned that joblessness would have to decline for two months or more locally to signal a clear, improving trend.

Joblessness in San Diego County has been increasing steadily over the last two years as the nationwide recession has taken hold locally and as defense contracts and construction projects have lessened.

Nowell said a compelling reason to be skeptical of the unemployment rate decline was that the absolute number of wage and salaried jobs in the county decreased by 1,000 during November to 984,200.

The county’s employment base is now down nearly 18,000 jobs, or 1.8%, from the peak total of 1,002,000 in November, 1990.

The job losses are a sharp reversal from the 1980s when jobs in the county grew at a 4% to 6% annual clip, Nowell said.

Nowell said the October-to-November decline in overall jobs is the first for that period since 1962. Jobs usually increase as wholesalers and retailers add staff to gear up for the Christmas shopping season.

The two employment sectors hit hardest by the jobs decline are construction and manufacturing. Over the past year, construction jobs are down by 4,000 to 56,600, a 6.6% decline. Manufacturing jobs in the county totaled 130,700 as of November, down 4,800 or 3.5% over the year, Nowell said.

The only jobs sector showing improvement over the year was services, which grew by 0.8% to a total of 280,900 jobs.

San Diego’s jobless rate was still lower than the state’s and nation’s. In November, California’s jobless rate was 7.3%, the same as previous month and up from the 6.5% rate in November, 1990. The U.S. rate was 6.6% in November, up from 6.4% in October and from 5.8% in November, 1990.

San Diego County Unemployment Rate 1991 Jan: 3.8% Nov.: 5.6% 1990 Jan.: 6.3% Dec. 5.4% Source: State Employment Development Department