County Unemployment Drops Slightly : Economy: September’s 9.1% jobless rate is better than August’s 9.4%, but worse than the 7.8% figure of a year ago.

Ventura County’s job picture improved slightly in September over the previous month, but it remained grim compared to a year earlier, state labor officials said Friday.

The jobless rate fell to 9.1% from August’s peak of 9.4%, but that was still a level last seen during the depths of the 1982-83 recession, according to a report issued by the California Employment Development Department. There were 5,800 fewer jobs available in the county than a year ago, the officials said.

The drop in the unemployment rate was little comfort to the 34,900 county residents who are competing for scarce jobs.

“Things are really slow,” said Michelle Pennington of Ventura as she waited in the unemployment line Friday. A single mother, Pennington quit her job at a title insurance company after she was denied a three-week leave when her daughter caught pneumonia.

Now she’s having a hard time finding work in real estate, a field that has lost 300 jobs in the last 12 months in Ventura County. “Very little is open,” she said.

The construction and retail trades have been hardest hit among major industry groups, with each down 1,400 jobs from a year ago, while 1,000 manufacturing jobs have disappeared, according to the state figures.

“It’s pretty depressing,” said Wayne Catalano, the treasurer for the Carpenters District Council. About 30% of the union’s 2,800 members are unemployed, Catalano said.

With construction complete at St. John’s Regional Medical Center and gearing down at the new Procter & Gamble plant, Catalano said union carpenters will be fortunate if more jobs aren’t lost.

Construction is often the first area to be hit in a recession, Catalano said, as failing and relocating companies leave behind empty buildings that must be rented before construction can pick up again.

Jerry Lanham, the district representative for the International Union of Operating Engineers, said the jobless rate for the union’s 1,200 members is also 25% to 30%.

“A lot of the members are taking odd jobs and using other craft skills to scratch enough money out to survive until this thing turns around,” Lanham said.

Only the existence of public construction projects has softened a slump that is now 2 years old, Lanham said. “Private work on large subdivisions has practically disappeared,” he said.

September’s jobless rate in Ventura County was sharply higher than the 7.8% rate 12 months earlier and marked the 19th straight month that unemployment increased over the previous year, the report showed.

Ventura County’s jobless rate closely paralleled California’s in September. Unemployment in the state was measured at 9.2%, significantly above the 7.5% rate 12 months earlier. Nationally, the jobless rate was 7.3% in September.

Economist Bruce F. DeVine of the Southern California Assn. of Governments predicted that the job market will remain weak as expected shakeouts in banking and manufacturing add employees to the jobless rolls.

DeVine said worries about air quality, water supply and the North American Free Trade Agreement have combined with a cyclical downturn to give California business a double whammy.

Initial claims for unemployment have remained disappointingly steady at the Ventura unemployment office, with several thousand a month seeking first-time benefits, said Linda Dever, the assistant manager.

Along with the bad news, though, have come some signs of encouragement, Dever said. Orders for seasonal retail jobs have picked up, as well as orders for high-paid engineering openings, she said.

But for Louella Boussart of Ventura, the positive signs have little meaning. “It’s been real tough,” said Boussart, who was laid off as a health-care aide.

“Right now I’m looking for anything,” she said. “I just want something that will pay me enough to allow me to live.”