LABOR : Affluent South County Communities Enjoy Lower Unemployment Rates

The affluent suburbs of South County have it all over the northern half of the county when it comes to unemployment.

The disparity between the two halves can be seen in figures collected recently by the state Employment Development Department.

The unemployment rates in tony South County communities such as Coto de Caza were minuscule compared to the rates for low-income neighborhoods of Santa Ana and Anaheim.

For instance, the 1,000-person work force of Coto de Caza--a neighborhood snuggled against the foothills where residents can ride horses--reported an unemployment rate of 0.4% in December, the lowest in the county.

The nearby planned community of Rancho Santa Margarita, with a work force of 7,500, had a relatively low unemployment rate of 2%.

The older beach cities of San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano, with more poor and middle-class residents, had unemployment rates of about 4%, still well below December’s countywide average of 5.3%.

(The state rate was 8.7% in December, while the U.S. rate was considerably better at 6.4%. Last year was the worst in a decade for joblessness in Orange County.)

The big North County city of Santa Ana, meanwhile, saw 15,000 of its 160,000-person work force unemployed in December, for a rate of 9.4%.

Stanton’s rate was next-highest in the county, at 9.3%. Anaheim’s was 6.1%: Out of a work force of 155,000 people, 9,500 were out of work.

Assuming that the Costa Mesa Freeway is the dividing line between north and south, other big North County cities’ unemployment rates were: Costa Mesa, 4.6%; Huntington Beach, 4%; Orange, 5.1%; Fullerton, 5.1% and Newport Beach, 3.3%.

South of the freeway, the unemployment rate in Irvine was 3.7%; Lake Forest, 3.9% and Laguna Beach, 2%.