Orange County companies added 9,500 new jobs in September as the unemployment rate fell to 7.1 percent, the lowest rate since December 2008, state officials reported Friday.
Statewide, employment increased by 8,500 jobs in September, according to the Employment Development Department. California?s unemployment rate declined to 10.2 percent from 10.6 percent, still third-highest in the nation.
FILE PHOTO, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
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Hiring at the state and local level was in keeping with the U.S. labor report released earlier this month. Nationwide, employers added a modest 114,000 jobs in September and unemployment fell to 7.8 percent.
Workplace experts said the Orange County jobs report shows an economy that is slowing from the hot pace of earlier this year, but still growing.
?You can?t argue with 7.1 percent,? said Wallace Walrod, chief economic advisor at the Orange County Business Council.
While government hiring accounted for the most growth ? 6,700 jobs ? the increase was mostly teachers returning to school after summer vacation.? Walrod was more impressed with the 1,300 jobs added in the leisure and hospitality business.
?That doesn?t usually happen in the fall,? he said, noting that employment at restaurants and hotels typically declines after summer in Southern California.
Orange County?s leisure and hospitality business has been booming. Local restaurants and hotels have added 10,500 jobs in the past year.
Anand Gala, president of Gala Corp., a hospitality and food service company in Costa Mesa, said the down economy provided opportunity for many new businesses in Orange County's market.
He had been looking for a location to open a restaurant locally for 15 years, he said, and the chance to get a location finally came up. Next week he will open a Famous Dave?s barbecue restaurant at Bristol Street and MacArthur Boulevard in Santa Ana's South Coast Metro area. He has hired 185 people to staff it in a variety of positions ranging from management to servers and trainees.
Esmael Adibi, a Chapman University economist, said the most encouraging part of the September report was that the labor force grew while the unemployment rate declined.
?We haven?t seen that in a long time,? he said. More recently the unemployment rate has been declining because people were giving up on finding a job and were leaving the workforce.
He had one word of caution, however. Most of the growth in the labor force was among the self-employed who are counted in the government?s separate monthly survey of households.
The household survey can be a volatile number. People contacted by the government for the household survey may describe themselves as self-employed one month, but if they can?t get any business they will consider themselves unemployed the next month.
Payroll jobs ? people working for employers ? tend to be a more reliable measure, but hiring has been slowing.
?For California, for us and for the nation for the last couple of months employers have taken a wait-and-see attitude,? he said.
Those workers finding jobs often are taking part-time positions. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said the number people who work part-time out of economic necessity rose by 600,000 in September to 8.6 million. Nearly one-third of those worked part-time because they couldn?t find a full-time job; others did so because their hours were cut.
?You have to take what?s out there,? said Lupita Marquez, 37, of La Habra, who works part-time at the La Habra School District. ?There?s just so many people applying for the same jobs.?
Orange County?s job growth in September came as good news after two months of declines. In August the county?s unemployment rate was slightly higher at 7.7 percent. August?s job loss also was worse than initially reported. The Employment Development Department revised its figures and determined county employers cut 8,900 workers instead of the 5,200 first reported. At the state level, employers only created 5,100 jobs in August instead of the 12,000 in the initial report.
Although California?s 10.2 percent September unemployment rate was down from its peak of 12.4 percent in summer 2010, it has been in double digits for nearly four years.? Only Nevada, with 11.8 percent unemployment, and Rhode Island at 10.5 percent are higher nationwide.
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Source: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/employment-375093-unemployment-rate.html
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