O.C. Jobless Rate 2.6%, Matching Decade Low

Unemployment in Orange County fell to a minuscule 2.6% last month, matching a decade low, as payrolls surged higher despite slowing growth in the state and mounting layoffs in manufacturing, the government reported Friday.

The county’s jobless rate, down from a revised 3% in October, had not been lower since the prerecession month of December 1989, when the seasonally unadjusted figure dropped to 2.4%. Unemployment was also 2.6% in December of last year.

As it has for many months, Orange County outpaced the state in job growth last month. Nonfarm employment in the county pushed above 1.3 million in November for the first time, an increase of 3.7% from a year earlier. Statewide, payrolls were up a solid 2.7% from a year ago, as brisk hiring by retailers and the sprawling services sector more than offset cutbacks by export-oriented manufacturers.

Overall, nonfarm payrolls in the state expanded by 29,700 in November, as California employers produced just about its share of the 267,000 jobs added nationwide last month. The state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell to 5.7% from 5.9% in October, matching an eight-year low posted in July.

The Employment Development Department said more than 13.7 million Californians held payroll jobs last month. Job growth statewide has slowed since early this year, but there is still plenty of steam left in the state’s 5-year-old expansion. Among major areas in the state, only the Inland Empire region of Riverside and San Bernardino counties added jobs last month at a faster clip than Orange County, based on annual comparisons.

Unemployment in Los Angeles County also dropped last month, to a seasonally adjusted 6.6% from 6.8% in October. Payrolls in the county were up by a more modest 2.3% from a year ago, comparable to the national rate. While low by Southern California standards, that was more than double the growth rate for Santa Clara County, home to Silicon Valley, which is now feeling the full brunt of the 1 1/2-year-old Asian crisis.

Amid falling exports to Asia and weakening business investment at home, employment at electronics and other goods makers in California fell by 6,200 in November, by far the largest monthly decline this year. Nationwide, factory payrolls dropped by 47,000 last month.

Given California’s extensive exposure to Asia and recent layoff announcements by firms such as Boeing Co., manufacturers throughout the state, including Orange County, are likely to feel increased pressures.

“It may be another six to nine months before we feel the worst of this is over,” said Richard O’Brien, economist at Hewlett-Packard Co., the big computer maker in Palo Alto.

Yet the softer side of high technology--software and computer services--is continuing to expand in California and nationwide, driven by work with the Internet, the year-2000 computer problem and programming for the euro currency conversion in Europe. With major firms such as El Segundo-based Computer Sciences Corp., California employs about one-fifth of the nation’s computer services workers.

State Department of Finance economist Ted Gibson estimated that California added 2,500 computer services jobs last month, enough to offset the decline in computer and electronics manufacturing. Electronics manufacturing jobs pay on average $47,000 a year, Gibson said, and computer services’ salaries are typically about $20,000 more than that.

Including computer services, business services contributed about half of the nearly 30,000 nonfarm jobs added last month. Social services, private education firms, and biotechnology also saw job growth.

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Employment Aplenty

Orange County unemployment in November dropped to the lowest rate since last December. The 13-month trend:

Unemployment Rate: Nov. 2.6%

Source: California Employment Development Department