O.C. Jobless Rate 6.4%, but Figure May Be Temporary, Officials Say : Employment: The January estimate is likely to change when a new effort to improve the tallies is completed.

Employers in Orange County dropped nearly 31,000 full- and part-time workers from their payrolls in January, the state Employment Development Department reported Monday.

January’s jobless rate was pegged at 6.4% in what EDD officials called a “provisional” estimate likely to be changed in June, when a major new effort to improve the accuracy of job tallies is completed. Because of the uncertainty about the accuracy of the latest figure, EDD officials said, it cannot be compared with the rates for previous months. December’s jobless rate was reported as 6.1%.

In the separate local wage and salary employment report prepared from data supplied directly by businesses with headquarters in Orange County, the decline to almost 1.10 million jobs in January from December’s revised figure of nearly 1.13 million jobs was typical, said Eleanor Jordan, EDD labor market analyst for Orange County. January and February are months when employers typically slash payrolls swollen by holiday hiring.

But the January job count also is down 24,600 from the revised total for January, 1992. That, Jordan said, is largely the result of the recession, heavy winter rains and a more accurate method of tallying employment.

The upshot is that January’s job count for Orange County-based companies is the lowest in at least 13 months. Numbers from 1991 and earlier cannot be compared with those for 1992 and 1993 because of the change in the way the state counts jobs. A revision of the monthly tallies for the last 10 years or so is due in June, said a spokeswoman for the EDD in Sacramento.

That revision is likely to show that the recession cut deeper here than previously thought.

“There is quite a bit of underestimation of the unemployed and overestimation of employment during a recession” because layoffs and business closures occur too rapidly to track closely, said Esmael Adibi, director of the Chapman University Center for Economic Studies.

When the EDD revised the 1991 and early 1992 figures a year ago, for example, it found that employment at Orange County-based businesses for 1991 had been overestimated by 48,100 jobs. And the revisions of 1992 numbers released Monday by Jordan lopped 6,900 jobs from the 1992 annual employment average that was issued just a month ago.

“We’ll probably see those kinds of adjustments again for 1992 and early 1993,” Adibi said.

“It means that the weakness of our (local) economy has been much greater than the government was saying,” he said. “But the strength of the national economy has been a little more than most people anticipated, and that will help offset some of the weaknesses in Orange County by eventually increasing the demand for the goods and services we produce here.”

The January unemployment rate was based on EDD estimates that 1.29 million Orange County residents held jobs and that 88,100 were out of work.

The number of jobs at county-based businesses in January is part of the separate wage and salary survey. It doesn’t match the jobless-rate report’s estimate of total employment because that counts all residents who hold jobs--regardless of where they work.

Jordan said that the industry segments with the heaviest job losses during 1992 were manufacturing, down 8,800 positions to a total of 211,700; construction, down 6,600 positions to a total of 39,400; retail trade, which dropped by 3,200 to a total of 196,400, and the services industries--including health care and business support services--which declined by 2,700 jobs to a total of 126,000.

Within the manufacturing segment, so-called high-technology employers trimmed their payrolls by 5,300 jobs from January, 1992, levels, while tourism-related employment in the county--which includes positions in the retail and services industries--declined by 2,400 jobs during the year.

January Jobless Picture

Although county unemployment increased in January compared with the same month a year earlier, the local rate is among the lowest in the state.

Unemployment Increase

The number of people out of work in Orange County in January increased in all private and public sectors except the service industries such as transportation, finance, insurance and real estate. In thousands of jobs:

Industry Jan ’92 Jan ’93 % change Mining, construction 47.2 40.4 -14.4% Manufacturing 145.9 142.4 - 2.4 Wholesale, retail trades 165.1 162.3 - 1.7 Service industries 438.0 441.3 + 0.8 Government 128.7 126.0 - 2.1 High tech 74.6 69.3 - 7.1 Tourism 115.4 113.0 - 2.1

Orange County Comparison

Orange County’s January unemployment rate of 6.4% is low compared with those for the rest of Southern California, the state and the nation. Some Bay Area counties, however, have lower rates. Southern California: Orange: 6.4% Los Angeles: 10.4 San Diego: 7.8 Riverside: 12.4 San Bernardino: 10.3 Ventura: 9.0

Bay Area: Marin: 5.6 San Mateo: 5.3 Alameda: 6.4 San Francisco: 6.9 Santa Clara: 6.9 Contra Costa: 6.7

State, nation: California: 9.8 United States: 7.9 Source: California Employment Development Department. Researched by DALLAS M. JACKSON / Los Angeles Times