California's employment picture: Good news and bad news

The good news is that with a recent surge of employment, California has regained virtually all of the million-plus jobs it lost during what many call the Great Recession.

The Employment Development Department reported Friday that California's unemployment rate, which hit a high of 12.4 percent in 2010, dropped to 8 percent in February. California had added 336,000 non-agricultural jobs in the previous 12 months.

The bad news is that despite regaining those lost jobs, California still has one of the nation's highest jobless rates, surpassed by only a handful of other states, and it's still well above the national average of 6.7 percent.

How can that be?

It's because over more than seven years of economic decline and recovery, California's population has grown and therefore so has its potential workforce, and the unemployment rate is the percentage of thelabor force that doesn't have jobs.

California's lowest unemployment rate in recent history was 4.8 percent for a few months in late 2006, when about 850,000 of the state's 17.8 million available workers were unemployed.

In the 7-1/2 years since then, California's labor force has grown by 800,000-plus to 18.6 million but the state has only 193,000 more people employed, leaving 640,000 more Californians without jobs than there were in 2006. Hence, with 1.5 million unemployed, the state has a much-higher unemployment rate now than it did then.

Two other factors also round out California's employment picture, and undercut somewhat the positive news of recent job gains.

One is labor force participation - the percentage of Californians of working age who either are working or seeking work. That's just 62.2 percent, the lowest rate in more than three decades, according to EDD. Were more Californians between the ages of 16 and 64 to join the labor force and seek work, the state's unemployment rate would be higher.

The second is what the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics calls "U-6" - the percentage of the labor force that's not only unemployed, but involuntarily working part-time or "marginally attached" to the labor force. BLS calls it "labor underutilization."

For 2013, California had the nation's second highest U-6 rate, 17.3 percent. And in Los Angeles County,which has more than a quarter of the state's population, it was 19.8 percent.

PHOTO: A group meets during a workshop for unemployed people at a community center in Corona, Calif., Aug. 7, 2012. The New York Times/Monica Almeida

Categories: California by the Numbers

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California has nation's second highest job distress rate

California may be recovering from the worst recession since the Great Depression, and its official unemployment rate has dropped by a third, but by another federal measure of employment distress, the state is second only to Nevada.

The alternative number, known as U-6 in economic statistical circles, includes not only unemployment — the percentage of the labor force that's jobless — but "marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers."

In other words, it represents every worker whose aspirations are being thwarted by economic conditions.

By the U-6 measure, California's employment distress rate is 18.3 percent for the 12 months ending June 30, according to a new report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. California's rate is second only to Nevada's 19 percent and four percentage points higher than the national rate of 14.3 percent.

California's U-6 rate is also more than twice as high as the state's 9.1 percent rate calculated by the BLS for 2006, the last year before the housing bubble burst, plunging the state into recession.

North Dakota, which is experiencing an oil boom, has the lowest rate of 6.2 percent. Texas, with whom California is often compared, has a U-6 rate of 11.6 percent.

PHOTO: Binders full of resources at the Employment Development Department office in Sacramento on Thursday February 14, 2008. The Sacramento Bee/Randall Benton

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California Unemployment Rate Holds at 9.8%, Highest in U.S.

The state's jobless rate, unchanged in January for the second straight month, is tied with Rhode Island. But California is No. 2 in payroll job growth.

California's jobless rate was unchanged at 9.8% in January for the second straight month, and that lack of improvement put the Golden State in a tie with Rhode Island for the worst unemployment in the U.S.

On the other end of the spectrum, North Dakota had the lowest jobless rate, 3.3%, the government said Monday in releasing updated and revised employment data for all 50 states.

California will release its county-by-county breakdown of jobs Friday, which economists expect will reflect the slow growth that is predicted in the state for 2013.

"We are expecting growth to pick up in the latter part of the year and in 2014, and the unemployment rate to come down at that point," said Jerry Nickelsburg, a UCLA economist who writes a quarterly economic forecast on the Golden State.

These statistics, based on more complete payroll information that includes tax records, show that California and other states in the western half of the country did much better in job growth over the last 12 months than the rest of the U.S., powered by the energy sector, technology, trade with Asia and a rebounding housing market.

Texas led all states in payroll job growth from January 2012 to January 2013; it added 332,400 jobs, an increase of 3.1%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

California was second. Though little changed from December to January, California's payroll count grew by 286,100 positions, or 2%, over the 12-month period. (Payroll jobs exclude work by the self-employed and jobs such as unpaid family work.)

The biggest gains came in leisure and hospitality, which added 7,800 jobs; construction saw a 7,300 jump. The largest drop in jobs — 5,500 — came in the combined trade, transportation and utilities sectors. The manufacturing sector shed 2,900 positions.

Nickelsburg said California was feeling the effect of a nationwide payroll tax increase as well as a state-implemented bump in sales tax and income tax on wealthy individuals. The automatic federal budget cuts that kicked in March 1, known as sequestration, will also affect growth.

"There are a lot of things going on," he said. "It's a little hard to ferret out what is the sequester and what are the other factors."

The Northeast region lagged behind the West, hurt by its relatively greater commercial links to Europe and by consolidation in financial services. Although the Northeast had a good January — partly the result of rebuilding after Superstorm Sandy — its job tally in the month was up just 1.1% from a year earlier. New York added 90,800 jobs over the year, an increase of 1.1%.

The pace of job growth in the Midwest was higher than in the Northeast but lower than in the West. The region has benefited from sturdy gains in manufacturing, particularly in the car industry.

For the U.S. as a whole, hiring accelerated in February, with employers adding 236,000 net new jobs compared with 119,000 in January, the Bureau of Labor Statistics previously reported. The national unemployment rate fell to 7.7% last month.

via LA Times