Area’s March Jobless Rate Falls to 4.4%

With the addition of more than 3,300 employees, farming topped other industries last month and helped push the county’s jobless rate down to a stunning 4.4% in March. Overall, 5,000 jobs were created countywide during the month.

According to a report released Friday by the state’s Employment Development Department, the unemployment rate fell half a percentage point from February with creation of additional jobs in the agricultural, service, construction and manufacturing industries.

“There was a lot of solid growth across the board,” department labor market analyst Dee Johnson said. “It looks to me like Ventura County is seeing a healthy and sustained growth.”

The bulk of that growth occurred in farming, which has been hiring workers for seasonal harvests and plantings.

Those jobs will disappear, analysts said, after the work is completed.

In the more telling nonfarm industries, light manufacturing created 700 jobs in March, construction added 500 and manufacturing increased its payrolls by about 200.

“The [Ventura County] economy just keeps chugging along,” said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. “It’s really sprung to life and it’s still riding the momentum it generated through 1998.”

With 276,900 residents employed, Ventura County ranks 13th among the state’s 58 counties in employment.

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There are now about 17,500 unemployed county residents. That number has dropped from January when the figure stood at more than 22,000.

In the more telling year-to-year comparison, unemployment dropped from 4.8% to 4.4%.

Over the past year, more than 9,900 jobs in nonfarm industries were created.

Most of those jobs were added in the service sector, which increased payrolls by about 4,000.

Construction added more than 2,500 jobs between March 1998 and last month, with retail trade following at about 1,500 jobs.

Although the local economy is continuing to show robust growth, analysts said they expect the economy and job growth to slow as the year progresses.

The state’s economy is already starting to show some weakness, particularly in the manufacturing industry, which has incurred some downsizing since the beginning of the year.

But experts say that for Ventura County, given its momentum and proximity to other counties such as Orange and San Diego, both at full employment, any losses should not be that great.

“There’s a lot of energy and activity in Southern California right now, which can’t be turned off with the flick of a switch,” Kyser said.

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“It’s got momentum, which could help it weather any downturn, but things can go south fast so it’s important that regions like Ventura County not stay complacent and keep trying to grow their economies.”

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Ventura County Jobless Rate, Los Angeles Times

Mar. 1999: 4.4%

Source: California Employment Development Department