November Jobless Rate Up Slightly, but Retail Hiring Also on the Rise

Although Ventura County’s unemployment rate climbed four-tenths of a percent to 5.7% in November, the number of jobs was up 1,900 compared with the same month last year.

“This is the first month, on a year-over-year basis, that we’ve shown positive growth in the nonfarm sector since April, and the largest since February,” said economist Mark Schniepp, director of California Economic Forecast in Santa Barbara.

The local jobless rate in November, up from 5.3% in the month before and the same period a year ago, matches the national unemployment rate and is better than California’s 6.3%, according to the state’s Employment Development Department.

“Ventura County is strong and never really did show the kind of weakness that appeared elsewhere in the state,” Schniepp said. “There should be no concern here.”

The county’s November jobless rate is 19th among California’s 58 counties. San Luis Obispo and Marin counties had the lowest unemployment rates at 3.5%.

Santa Barbara County had a rate of 4.5% and Los Angeles County had a 5.8% rate.

The data are “strong enough to support the idea that Ventura County remains a great place to visit and to live,” said Bill Watkins, executive director of the Economic Forecast Project at UC Santa Barbara.

Schniepp said local job creation peaked in late 1999 and early 2000, when the area had more than 12,000 new jobs in a year’s time. That figure dropped to just a few thousand in January 2002. And 1,900 jobs were lost in August.

By contrast, 1,900 nonfarm jobs were created in November, with retail employment representing the largest gain at 1,600 positions.

Of those, 800 more people were hired at eating and drinking places and 700 were newly employed at other retail establishments.

“That means a lot of vendors are looking to a more-robust Christmas season, and they’re anticipating that by hiring more people,” Schniepp said.

Watkins said the hiring numbers are, in part, a result of an expanded retail base. Ventura Gateway Plaza placed a Barnes & Noble and a Pier 1 Imports on the site of a former drive-in movie theater, and the reinvigorated Esplanade Mall in Oxnard continues to open additional stores.

The number of education jobs was up compared with November 2001, with 200 more state jobs being credited to Cal State Channel Islands, the new four-year public university in Camarillo.

And while the number of local education jobs was down compared with the same month last year, 1,500 were added in November over the previous month.

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Ventura County Unemployment

November

*--* Year Jobless workers Jobless rates

1983 25,500 8.8%

1984 23,200 7.7%

1985 22,100 7.1%

1986 23,700 7.2%

1987 18,700 5.5%

1988 20,500 5.7%

1989 18,900 5.1%

1990 28,400 7.7%

1991 31,200 8.5%

1992 38,100 10.1%

1993 34,600 9.2%

1994 30,600 8.0%

1995 31,900 8.3%

1996 28,400 7.4%

1997 26,500 6.9%

1998 23,400 6.0%

1999 20,100 5.0%

2000 19,400 4.6%

2001 22,600 5.3%

2002 24,600 5.7%

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Source: State Employment Development Department