Ventura County’s Jobless Rate Falls Slightly

Despite 11 months of job losses, Ventura County maintained a modest unemployment rate of 5.6% in November, slightly lower than in October and less than the same month a year ago.

The county’s rate, less than a revised 5.8% in October and 6.1% in November 2002, was better than the state rate of 6.3%. The nation’s seasonably unadjusted rate was also 5.6%.

“There is still a lot of robustness in Ventura County. Look at all the jobs that are not being created in Southern California, but we still have a relatively benign unemployment rate,” said Mark Schniepp, director of the California Economic Forecast in Santa Barbara.

But job losses continue.

In November, the number of total jobs was down 6,700 compared with the same month last year, a number that would have been worse if not for a gain of 500 agricultural positions in the 12-month period, according to statistics released Friday by the state Employment Development Department.

Other bright spots include a 300-person increase in finance-related jobs and a gain of 1,200 retail trade positions as merchants began hiring last month to prepare for the holiday shopping season.

Job sectors recording the steepest 12-month loses were administrative and support services, down 2,100 jobs; manufacturing, off 1,500 positions, and construction, with 1,400 fewer workers.

Bruce Stenslie, director of the Ventura County Business and Employment Services Department, which coordinates several state and federal jobs programs, said month-to-month job gains this fall were cause for optimism.

“The year-over-year numbers, in total, are pretty bad. But that’s old news. We knew that with the steep job losses in the first half of the year that we would be down,” he said, “but in recent months there has been some movement in the right direction.”

Stenslie said November’s 2,200-person drop in farm jobs from October was offset by an increase in 1,500 nonfarm jobs during the month.

“It pains me to see that we lost 2,200 farm jobs, but that’s part of the cyclical nature of agriculture -- and year over year we’re up 500 jobs in agriculture, one of the few places we’re actually up,” he said. “I don’t want to diminish the loss of jobs, but I don’t think we’ll see much more pain. What we will see is slow and steady growth through 2004 across most industry sectors, with more increases in 2005.”

Schniepp agreed that next year should be better, but added that things were not as bad now as many believed. “We don’t see misery, we still see a lot of people employed. There’s certainly not any less traffic. And retail sales are picking up -- automobile sales have been quite spectacular this year,” Schniepp said. “We see people working everywhere, except in the jobs statistics, because there are lots of hidden jobs: private contractors, consultants and other independent workers.”

These “hidden jobs” encourage Dan Hamilton, director of economics for the UC Santa Barbara Economic Forecast, who thinks the gap between the payrolls of employers in Ventura County and the number of county residents who say they are employed suggests many positions have yet to be tallied.

“What’s interesting is the household survey data may be a better indicator of the future,” Hamilton said, explaining that laid-off workers may begin to work for themselves from home or for a friend in a new start-up firm. Until that new business is detected by the state, the worker is unaccounted for, he said.

Hamilton and Schniepp predict about 5,300 jobs, or 1.8% of Ventura County’s workforce, will be lost in 2003, followed by steady and modest job growth next year.

Stenslie said another sign of relative employment strength was that for the past several months the jobless rate has been lower than it was in the same month of 2002. And Ventura County, which ranked 21st among the state’s 58 counties as measured by employment rates in October, rose to 14th place in November, he said.

But the area must share the glory. In a statistical aberration the state can’t explain, six California counties had 5.6% unemployment in November: Lassen, Napa, Sacramento, Solano, Ventura and Yolo.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that happen since I’ve been working here,” said Abel Alcoer, a state labor market analyst for the area. “It’s very strange.”