THE ECONOMY: JITTERS AMID OPTIMISM : Employment Picture Brightens : Apparent Rise in Joblessness Reflects New Survey Method

The nation’s unemployment rate rose to 6.7% during January as federal officials began using a new, more accurate survey of job seekers, the Labor Department reported Friday. However, Clinton Administration officials and private economists emphasized that the employment picture is actually improving.

The U.S. jobless rate was up from the 6.4% level previously reported for December, when officials were still relying on decades-old polling techniques that underestimated the number of unemployed workers, particularly women, in the labor force.

If the old method of calculating jobless rates had been used for both months, the jobless rate would have fallen to 6.3% in January, government officials said.

California’s unemployment level jumped to 10.1% in January, compared to 8.8% in December, while Los Angeles County’s volatile rate leaped to 11% from 8.9%. But economists also attributed those increases largely to the government’s new survey of U.S. households rather than to a worsening of the economy.

In fact, a separate monthly employment study that was not affected by the government’s data-gathering revisions showed recession-battered California gaining a modest 6,300 jobs in January. The improvement in the government’s so-called payroll survey, based on figures supplied by more than 370,000 employers across the country, came mainly from an increase in retailing jobs.

All the government surveys were taken during the week before the Northridge earthquake and do not reflect the massive economic and personal disruption linked to the temblor.

Nationally, the payroll survey showed a disappointing gain of 62,000 jobs, down from an increase of 183,000 in December, but the slowdown in employment growth was blamed on frigid weather in the East and Midwest.

“The bad weather kept people indoors and away from the stores, and it also hurt construction activity,” said Joseph A. Wahed, chief economist for Wells Fargo Bank in San Francisco. “But there’s no question America is on a roll right now. Don’t let the weather fool you.”

Fearful of negative headlines that could spring from the jump in the national unemployment rate, the White House offered a barrage of explanatory and optimistic comments Friday from three of the Administration’s heavyweights: Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen, Labor Secretary Robert Reich and the head of the Council of Economic Advisers, Laura D’Andrea Tyson.

Bentsen emphasized that the number of Americans at work increased by 1.9 million in the past year.

“Don’t get stuck on the level,” Bentsen said, trying to steer the focus away from the 6.7% rate. “Look at the trends.”

The government’s chief job numbers expert, Commissioner of Labor Statistics Katherine G. Abraham, backed Bentsen’s argument that conditions are improving. The January report shows there have been “continued underlying improvements in the job market,” she told Congress’ Joint Economic Committee.

The “healthy payroll employment growth that we have seen in recent months appears to have been restrained by unusually poor weather in January, but many of the industries that are less affected by weather conditions continue to expand,” she said.

California’s jobless rate, at 10.1%, was by far the highest among the 11 big states whose unemployment figures were released Friday. It was followed by Florida and Michigan, which posted jobless rates of 7.5%.

North Carolina was the state with the best unemployment figure, 4%, followed by Pennsylvania and Texas, each at 6%.

California’s rate was its highest since June, 1983, when it stood at 10.3%. The county’s jobless rate, at 11%, was its highest since February, when it stood at 11.2%. But experts cautioned against making such comparisons because of the new calculating techniques.

Because the new method asks men and women similar and more precise questions--and thus is less gender-biased--it is less likely to undercount women in the labor force and the percentage of women unemployed, economists say.

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Rosenblatt reported from Washington and Silverstein from Los Angeles.

U.S Unemployment Percent of work force, seasonally adjusted; January 1994: 6.7%. Source: Labor Department / Los Angeles Times