L.A. County’s Jobless Rate Hits Record Low

Highlighting the region’s comeback from economic collapse in the early 1990s, Los Angeles County’s unemployment rate dropped sharply to a record low of 5% in November, state officials said Friday.

The county’s surprisingly big decline in joblessness, down from 5.5% in October, came despite increasing signs of a national economic slowdown. It is the county’s lowest unemployment rate in at least 18 years.

The latest employment gains suggest that the Los Angeles area, one of California’s economic weak spots through the 1990s, “has essentially caught up with the rest of the state,” said Ted Gibson, chief economist for the state Department of Finance.

Statewide, joblessness held steady at 4.8% in November for the third straight month, as improvement in California’s biggest urban areas was offset by rising joblessness in rural communities.

Analysts cautioned that the latest statistics released Friday by the California Employment Development Department may have somewhat overstated the recent actual improvement in L.A. County’s labor market. They noted that the county’s jobless numbers are based on a comparatively small statistical sampling of just more than 1,800 households.

All the same, experts agreed that the county and the overall Southern California economy have continued to expand in recent months. “We are looking at a very healthy economy,” said Lisa M. Grobar, director of the Cal State Long Beach Economic Forecast Project, which tracks the five-county Southern California region.

Gibson said he also was encouraged because, “At this point, we can still say we don’t see the signs of a slowdown in the California numbers that are evident in the national indicators.” Last week the federal government reported that the U.S. unemployment rate inched up to 4% last month, up from a 30-year low of 3.9% in October.

In Southern California last month, unemployment fell in every county except Ventura, where it climbed to 4.7% from 4.4% in October.

Orange County, the economic powerhouse of Southern California, posted a decline in joblessness to 2.2%, down from 2.4% in November, matching the record low in December 1999.

State officials usually trace unemployment figures back to January 1983, when they began tracking the statistic for Los Angeles, Orange and other counties in the current format.

Michael S. Bernick, director of the California Employment Development Department, said his agency’s employment offices have noticed a considerable number of layoffs around the state in recent weeks. But, he said, “What’s striking is the relatively easy time people who are laid off or unemployed are having finding new jobs.”

“In the great majority of cases, workers are getting roughly equal jobs, or even better jobs, in a short period,” Bernick said.

Still, in Southern California and elsewhere around the state, there is plenty of sobering economic news. Rural areas in much of California continue to suffer double-digit unemployment. The jobless rate in Imperial County, east of San Diego, was the worst in California last month, at 25.7%, down from 30% in October. In many rural counties in Central and Northern California, rates climbed, the customary pattern in November as farm activity slows.

For all its improvement, Los Angeles County still has fewer jobs than it did a decade ago, and per capita income levels still are low here compared with other parts of the country.

Mark Pisano, executive director of the Southern California Assn. of Governments, cited federal statistics showing that per capita income in Los Angeles ranked second to last nationally among 17 large metropolitan areas surveyed. Although the numbers were collected in 1998, Pisano said the situation has not changed much since then.

Los Angeles is recovering, he said, but a key question remains: “Is everyone benefiting?”

What’s more, even though many leading forecasters expect California’s economy to outperform the national economy next year, some slowing is expected in the state.

During November, in fact, the state’s growth in the number of jobs was weaker than in previous months, though solid. California employers added 29,200 jobs, down from a revised total of 45,000 for October. Over the last 12 months, California has averaged job gains of 36,942.

Underscoring California’s stronger growth compared with the rest of the country, the state last month accounted for 31% of the 94,000 job gains nationwide. The state’s increases came in nine of the 10 major industry groups surveyed. The remaining category was the small-mining sector, which was unchanged from October.

Unlike Los Angeles County, Orange County’s job totals have risen to record levels. Orange County gained 3,300 jobs in November. Big job gains in retailing offset seasonal cutbacks in the amusement industry.

The county with the lowest unemployment in California was San Mateo, at 1.3%, down from 1.4% in October. The next-best rate was in Marin County, where the level held steady at 1.5%. Both are in the Bay Area, where the technology-driven labor market has remained extremely tight for months.

Among major demographic groups statewide, there was little change in unemployment rates. The jobless rate for Latinos remained at 6.4%, while it edged down for blacks to 7.6%, from 7.7% in October. Among 16- to 19-year-olds, the rate climbed to 17.5% in November, from 17.2% the month before.