California Adds 29,700 Workers in November

California employers added a substantial 29,700 jobs in November, keeping the state’s economic recovery chugging along and nudging down the state’s unemployment rate to 6.9% from a revised 7% in October, officials reported Friday.

Los Angeles County, one of the weak spots in the state’s economic comeback, showed improvement too, with its jobless rate edging down to 7.6% last month from a revised 7.8% in October.

Statewide, the job increases again were spread over a range of industries, with seven of the nine major employment categories posting growth. “We’re moving ahead on a broad front,” said Ted Gibson, economist for the California Department of Finance. That pattern, he said, has continued throughout 1996.

The latest figures underscored analysts’ predictions that California--powered by strength in such industries as motion pictures, multimedia and foreign trade--will continue growing faster than the rest of the nation for the foreseeable future.

After suffering a more severe recession in the early 1990s than the nation as a whole, however, the state is still trying to catch up. Nationally, as reported two weeks ago, the jobless rate was 5.4% in November, up from 5.2% in October, on a modest employment gain of 118,000 jobs.

November’s slight decline in California’s jobless level was regarded as insignificant in itself, especially because the rate for October also was initially reported as 6.9% before being revised upward. All the same, the state’s unemployment rate has continued to move generally downward for months, and now hovers near a six-year low.

Statewide, the biggest chunk of the job gains came in retailing, which posted an increase of 11,100 after economists’ seasonal adjustments were taken into account. Gibson said it appeared that because of the shorter-than-usual holiday shopping season this year, retailers did more hiring to handle the extra crush of customers expected at the stores in late November and December.

Also noteworthy was the gain of 1,300 jobs in manufacturing, which has been growing in California despite continuing declines nationally. In particular, aerospace employment--whose abrupt decline pulled California into its deep recession in the early 1990s--has been up modestly seven of the last eight months.

“We can pretty well say it’s turned the corner now, which is certainly good news,” Gibson said.

For the two areas statewide that lost employment--the finance, insurance and real estate category, along with the transportation and public utilities group--the overall decline totaled only 300 jobs.

In Los Angeles County, the jobless rate, at 7.6%, is now back to where it stood in September. A year ago, it was 8.1%, and it has hovered around that level most of 1996.

The continuing boom in the motion picture and television industry, along with a jump in retailing employment, were largely responsible for the county’s improved figures last month.

However, the picture was far brighter in Orange County, which is the healthiest labor market in Southern California. Orange County’s unemployment rate--which, unlike the state and Los Angeles County figures, is not adjusted for seasonal trends--fell in November to 3.5%.

That is down from 3.8% in October, and the lowest jobless rate in the county since May 1990.

“It is a very, very good report,” said Esmael Adibi, director of Chapman University’s Center for Economic Research. He added that “barring any unanticipated change, we should continue moving along very nicely.”

Service-related employment scored the biggest increase in the county in November, underscoring the growing emphasis on that sector of the economy.

In most other Southern California counties, the jobless rates also declined, falling in San Diego to 4.6% from 5%; in San Bernardino to 6.3% from 6.7%; and in Riverside, to 8.2% from 8.3%. In Ventura County, the jobless rate rose to 7.4%, up from 7.0%.