51,800 Join Work Force in California
A hiring spurt at public schools and notable job gains in aircraft manufacturing and construction helped lift California’s payroll employment by 51,800 in September, although the jobless rate edged up to 6.3%, state officials reported Friday.
Last month’s job growth was inflated by the settlement of a strike at United Parcel Service of America, which returned 25,800 workers to California’s nonfarm payrolls. Even so, the addition of 26,000 other jobs across a broad spectrum of industries stood out as an impressive tally against the rest of the nation.
Apart from the return of UPS workers, the nation as a whole created just 53,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in September--about half of which, the new figures now show, came from California. “We’re certainly carrying more than our load,” said Howard Roth, an economist at Bank of America.
The state’s jobless rate for September inched up from 6.2% for the prior month, reflecting a slight increase in the number of unemployed workers. However, analysts viewed the change as insignificant.
Orange County’s unemployment rate also moved up a notch to 3.5%, from 3.4%. Total nonfarm employment in the county grew to 1.22 million last month, up 3% from September 1996. Construction, manufacturing and services--particularly business services and amusement--have shown the strongest job gains.
In Orange County as well as throughout the state, government led the hiring last month, as school districts added teachers to meet the mandate for smaller class sizes.
As in the last few months, the latest jobs data show Southern California is gaining on its economically stronger brethren in the north, where electronics manufacturers and other companies are feeling constraints in production capacity and land.
“The Bay Area is sort of hitting a wall,” said Ted Gibson, economist at the state Department of Finance.
One area that favors Southern California, particularly Los Angeles County, is the surprising comeback in the aerospace industry.
Buoyed by surging demand for aircraft supplies, aerospace employment in Los Angeles County climbed to 141,900 last month, up from the recession’s low point of 136,600 in January 1996. Moreover, work in that industry is spurring payroll growth at other durable manufacturers. Employment at primary metal factories in the county, for example, was up almost 4% in September from a year earlier.
Analysts say aerospace employment could get an extra boost if Boeing Co. increases production of supplies in the coming months, as it is expected to, because the Seattle-based airplane maker is struggling to keep up with demand.
Such gains in manufacturing, plus growth in services and government, kept Los Angeles County’s unemployment rate at 6.6% last month--down from 8.1% in September 1996.
Los Angeles County still lags the nation in job growth, but James Gikas, senior economist at Recon Research Inc. in Los Angeles, sees the county pulling ahead next year.
Other counties in Southern California already have surpassed the nation in job growth. Orange County continued to add jobs last month in manufacturing, led by aircraft employment, which is now up 21% from a year earlier, to 7,500 jobs.
The jobless rate for the Inland Empire, which includes Riverside and San Bernardino counties, dipped to 7.6% in September, from 7.7%. Jobs in the Inland Empire have been expanding at a slightly faster pace than in the rest of the state, but its unemployment rate remains comparatively higher because its labor force has grown more sharply.
