State Jobless Rate Lowest in Five Years

California’s reviving economy produced a healthy gain of 30,100 jobs last month and kept the unemployment rate at a five-year low of 7.6%, state officials reported Friday.

Analysts, pleased at the building momentum of the state’s rebound, predicted more job increases in coming months that would drive unemployment down further. The 7.6% unemployment logged in both January and February is the lowest level for the state since February 1991, when the rate was 7.4%.

January’s level was previously reported as 7.7% but was revised downward Friday. The new report “reinforces the notion that California is on a very solid growth track,” said David Hensley, a regional economist with Salomon Bros. in New York.

Tom Lieser, associate director of the UCLA Business Forecasting Project, added the state’s economy will probably kick into a higher gear once the still-slumping home building industry picks up.

“Most of the economy has gone from recovery into an expansionary phase, but we’re still waiting for housing,” he said.

Los Angeles County’s jobless rate, like the state’s, was unchanged in February, remaining at 8.1%. By one measure, however, more than 40% of the state’s new jobs last month came in the county, providing evidence that the Southland is joining the rebound elsewhere in California. Unemployment data for other California counties will be reported next week.

The national employment figures for February, released two weeks ago, showed a stunning gain of 705,000 jobs--an increase so huge that it sent stock and bond prices plummeting.

Wall Street bounced back, however, after investors and analysts digested the numbers and concluded that the big gain in February--along with the loss of 188,000 jobs in January--was a statistical fluke. The erratic figures over the two months were blamed largely on January’s blizzards across much of the country and a comeback fostered by the more moderate weather in February.

California, on the other hand, was spared the wild swings. Its job gains over January and February averaged 24,800--up from a solid monthly average of 23,917 during 1995.

While the state’s unemployment rate remained more than 2 percentage points above the U.S. level for February, 5.4%, analysts said the state’s percentage job growth this year is likely to outpace the nation’s and bring joblessness closer to the national average.

Economists based their increasingly upbeat view of the California economy on growth in such important state industries as entertainment, multimedia and other high-technology businesses. In addition, analysts point to California’s increasingly important international trade businesses and the stabilizing of its still-huge aerospace and defense industries--whose big job cutbacks beginning in 1990 pulled the state into its historic recession.

During February, the state’s job gains were broadly based. The biggest gains came in services and retail and wholesale trade.

Analysts were puzzled by the one industry showing a big loss in February, construction, where jobs declined by 9,500. One explanation offered was the rainy weather last month in Northern California. Hensley said that while home building has been slow, public works, commercial and industrial construction have been showing improvement.

In fact, over the last 12 months, construction has posted the biggest percentage gain in jobs in the state--a rise of 5.1%, or 24,600 jobs.

Los Angeles County’s job figures, unlike the state’s, are not adjusted for statistical trends. The unadjusted data, however, show the county picking up 35,100 jobs, more than two-fifths of the state’s unadjusted total.

The biggest gains came in education, business services such as temporary-help agencies, motion pictures, wholesale trade, construction and apparel manufacturing. State analysts predicted a smaller gain for this month. They said that education-related employment will level off and that despite the generally stable unemployment lately in aerospace, some layoffs are expected.