Confidence Up as Jobless Rate Drops

The Ventura County economy continued to strengthen last month as unemployment dipped, and analysts say confident local employers now intend to hire many more workers in coming months.

Buoyed by a seasonal boost in farm employment, the county’s jobless rate dropped from 4.7% in February to 4.6% in March, compared with March figures of 6.5% in California and 6.1% nationwide, without seasonal adjustments.

There were 19,500 jobless workers locally last month, down 300 from the month before, as a strawberry harvest and other farm activities accounted for nearly all of the 1,200 jobs added in Ventura County.

Compared with a year before, jobs were up 3,200 in March.

“This is exactly what we expected to see--relatively slow growth,” said Bill Watkins, director of the Economic Forecast Project at UC Santa Barbara. “And a good part of it is seasonal agriculture.”

At the same time, Watkins said a new UCSB survey shows that employers are growing increasingly confident that the economy will improve.

“The change is fairly dramatic,” Watkins said. “The preliminary surveys show a very large increase in people’s perception of the economy’s performance in the coming months and the next year. And they intend to hire.”

Final results of the UCSB survey of hundreds of businesses in Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties will be released later this month.

The Central Coast area has fared much better than the state and nation, and even outperformed bigger regions in a healthy Southern California, Watkins said.

The jobless rate in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties tied for eighth-lowest of the state’s 58 counties last month. San Luis Obispo County had the lowest rate, 3.2%. Orange and San Diego counties ranked third and fourth, respectively, and Los Angeles County had a 6.5% rate, the state average.

“Overall, these numbers are very consistent with a slowly improving economy,” Watkins said. “And obviously, this region is doing much better than the state.”

The local economy is riding out the downturn relatively well because heavy manufacturing and Internet businesses, the nation’s weakest sectors, are not big employers in Ventura County.

The biggest job gains last month were apparently fueled by a robust strawberry harvest, which started in February and continued into March. Farm-related employment increased by 1,100 in March, after a 2,800-job increase in February. Farms employed 2,000 more workers in March than in the same month last year.

Nonfarm employment increased by just 100 jobs during the month, with construction jobs off by 300 from February and down 500 from last year.

Manufacturing, hit hardest locally by the short recession, is down 700 jobs since March 2001.

Meanwhile, parts of the economy related most closely to consumers have done well. Restaurants and bars employ 600 more workers than a year ago, auto dealers 300 more.

And food production facilities employ 400 more workers.

“This recession has been characterized by a lack of investment by business,” Watkins said, “and by strong consumer spending.”