County Posts Record Low Jobless Rate
Ventura County’s unemployment rate fell to an all-time low in April, driven by the hiring of additional farm workers for the area’s harvest season.
Unemployment rates dipped to 3.3%, the lowest number the state Employment Development Department has on record for the county since it started keeping records in 1983. That compares with 3.6% during the same month last year.
“It’s typically low this time of year because of the high agriculture season. But this is the lowest ever,” said analyst Dee Johnson, who prepared the report.
Experts on the economy said Ventura County has not been as affected by the country’s financial faltering because the area does not heavily depend upon technology, particularly jobs in the battered dot-com market.
“Ventura County really hasn’t shown much weakness through the whole thing,” said Mark Schniepp, director of the California Forecast Project. “Ventura, and Southern California in general, isn’t as dot-comized or technologized as, say, Northern California and Silicon Valley. The economy is more diversified than that.”
The season is also pushing the strong employment rate, Johnson added. Spring is a harvest period when demand for farm workers is high.
“Traditionally, over every other time of year, we find the lowest unemployment rate in April and May,” Johnson said. “And that’s because of the agriculture jobs.” Between March and April of this year, for instance, agriculture payrolls jumped by 1,800.
Jobs in other industries also increased last month. About 700 positions were added in such areas as retail and government.
Over the past year, 6,400 jobs have been created, with as many as 6,100 of those in nonfarm-related areas. The biggest jump was in retail and wholesale trade, which increased by 2,000 positions, and manufacturing, which increased by 1,100. Service jobs jumped by 1,700.
The county’s unemployment rates have fallen since January, when the rate hit 4.4%. The rate slipped to 3.6% in March before hitting the current low of 3.3%.
The numbers are significantly lower than those for the rest of the state and the nation. California’s unemployment rate is 4.7%, slightly above the national average of 4.2%, according to Johnson’s report.
Schniepp, however, cautioned against optimism, saying Ventura County is “not impervious” to a weakening economy. Job growth, he said, has slowed from 4.3% last year to 2.2% in April.
“So we certainly are seeing a slowdown indicative of the rest of the nation,” Schniepp said. “But it is hard to give a job to people who don’t need them. And right now, everybody who wants a job has one.”
