Countywide : Jobless Rate Drops 2nd Month in a Row

The county unemployment rate dropped to 6.9% in April, but most job growth was limited to agriculture, state employment officials said Wednesday.

And the slight drop--down just 0.2% from a revised March figure--may only have been a statistical quirk, the result of a reduced number of jobless claims during the spring holidays, officials said.

The drop marked the second straight month that the jobless rate fell in the county, with the March rate a full point below the 8.1% unemployment rate reported in February.

Despite the decline, the county’s jobless rate in April remained higher than in the same month a year ago, when 6% of the work force was unemployed.

But the jobless picture in Ventura County remained brighter than in the state or nation.

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in California dropped to 8% in April, down from 8.7% in March, according to the report. Nationally, the adjusted jobless rate fell to 7.2% from 7.7% in March.

The number of jobs in Ventura County grew by 3,200 in April, matching the number of new jobs in agriculture, the jobs report showed. A slight gain of 300 jobs in wholesale trade was offset by losses in transportation, public utilities and construction.

State jobless officials said the slight drop in reported unemployment may have been more a result of how the jobless rate is determined than by a recovering economy.