County Jobless Rate Drops Down to 6.8% : Employment: April’s decline is due to a swell of workers for the strawberry harvest. But survey shows non-agricultural sectors lost jobs.

Ventura County’s jobless rate plunged to 6.8% in April, the lowest level in nearly two years, as the county’s farm payroll swelled by 4,100 workers during the peak of the strawberry harvest, labor officials said Friday. March’s jobless rate stood at 7.9%.

But despite the gains in agricultural employment, which followed a seasonal trend, the picture was less bright in other areas of the county’s economy, according to a monthly report released by the state Employment Development Department.

The number of jobs in Ventura County in non-agricultural sectors actually dropped by 100 from March to April, to 223,200, according to a survey of employers.

And non-farm employment dropped by 3,300 in April compared to a year before, making April the 27th consecutive month that Ventura County had fewer non-farm jobs than during the previous year.

The county’s non-farm payroll averaged 221,800 for the first four months of 1993, continuing a four-year slide in county employment, according to Richard Shea, research manager for the employment department.

“We’re seeing a continuing recessionary trend in Ventura County, with the number of jobs down to the 1989 employment level,” Shea said.

Industries hit hardest over the past year were federal and local government, down by a combined 1,600 jobs; manufacturing, with 800 fewer jobs and mining and wholesale trade, each down by 200 jobs.

Over the same 12-month period, though, the county’s service sector grew by 500 positions and construction grew slightly by 200 jobs, the report indicated.

While other sectors of the local economy stagnated in April, agriculture was in full swing, farm officials said.

Despite a slightly smaller crop than usual, strawberry growers said they increased their work force to a seasonal peak in April. County growers employ up to 12,000 strawberry workers during the height of the season, said Wally Havens of the Ventura County Agricultural Assn.

With production down slightly at the 200-acre Nakamura Berry Growers farm in Oxnard, the demand for berry pickers was also down slightly, said Ron Kato, the farm’s office manager.

At the 80-acre Iwamoto and Son Farm near Oxnard, Kaz Iwamoto said the farm’s labor force remained stable in April, but said crews would be trimmed by as much as 30% by the end of May as the season winds down.

Despite sluggish job growth in non-farm sectors, area labor officials point to a continuing decline in unemployment claims as evidence the economy may be nearing a bottom.

Initial claims for unemployment benefits dropped steadily this year in the Ventura and Simi Valley offices, officials said. There were 2,497 new filings in April, down by one-third from January, when 3,619 individuals filed initial claims for benefits.

Other signs pointed to renewed growth in the area’s economy, said Larry Kennedy, the head of the employment department’s Simi Valley office.

The number of job orders filed by employers seeking new workers more than doubled between February and May, and just as important, the average pay for the openings has been on the rise, Kennedy said.

While 90% of the job orders posted during the recession have been for jobs that pay less than $5.60 an hour, the 18 positions listed on one recent day averaged $7.92 an hour, he said.

“I think we’re seeing the beginning of a small-business resurgence,” Kennedy said.

Even so, Ventura County has not yet experienced the non-farm job growth that is evident in several other Southern California counties, including San Bernardino and Riverside, said Shea, the employment department researcher.

Those two counties have had three straight months of economic growth, a signal that the area’s hard-hit economy may finally be ready to recover, Shea said.

“There’s a lot of demand for labor out there,” Shea said, “but we won’t necessarily see it everywhere until the start of 1994.”