Hiring zooms in San Diego County
San Diego County’s unemployment rate stayed at 5.8 percent in November, but annual job growth accelerated at its fastest pace since March 2013.
Last month, county employers added 13,100 people to payrolls, about 6,400 of which were seasonal retail jobs, the Employment Development Department reported Friday. However, over the last year, employers have added 43,000 positions, good for 3.2 percent growth. That’s the fastest pace for San Diego County since jobs grew 3.7 percent from March 2012 to March 2013. The region’s current annual growth is more than double that of Los Angeles County, and about a full percentage faster than Orange County, California, and the nation.
“San Diego’s job market sparkled with good cheer in November, with companies hiring at a rapid clip, allowing more people to enter the work force and to find jobs,” said Lynn Reaser, chief economist at Point Loma Nazarene University. “In 2013, San Diego’s job market lost much of its momentum as the year came to an end. This year is turning out to be much different as we appear to be gaining speed rather than losing it.”
The region’s economy got a real boost in the second half of 2014, when the nation’s gross domestic product accelerated. The U.S. had an especially weak first quarter, which kept local job growth slower than it could have been earlier in the year, around 2.1 percent. But when national gross domestic product sped up to 3.9 percent in the third quarter, it meant more people buying goods and services from San Diego companies, as well as more tourists coming to town. It all translated into more hiring, said Alan Gin, economist at the University of San Diego.
“We’ve got a lot of companies doing business on a nationwide basis,” he said. “If the national economy is humming, that means we’re selling more stuff to people around the country.”
The positions being added over the year are across industries, with the largest chunk, 8,500, coming in the high paying professional, scientific and technical services sector. Education and health services added 7,700 jobs, while the leisure and hospitality field grew by 6,500 people, mostly in food and drinking establishments. And despite its seasonal hiring, the retail trade industry is still employing 2.7 percent more workers than it did at this time last year, a sign that businesses are expecting people to spend more during the holidays, Gin said.
The unemployment rate didn’t change over the month because the number of people entering the labor force was too close to the number of people who reported that they now have a job. Esmael Adibi, economist at Chapman University, said the jobless rate could actually increase in the coming months, as more people become optimistic about finding work and therefore rejoin the labor force.
Over the last year, however, the unemployment rate has dropped from 7 percent for the reasons economists like to see: the labor force grew, but there were enough jobs added to absorb those entrants, as well as a number of those who were previously jobless. In the last year, the number of unemployed persons in the county has declined 15 percent to 94,000.
“Last year we were seeing the unemployment rate going down because people were leaving the labor force,” Adibi said. “That’s indicative of a sick economy, not a healthy economy. What we’re seeing now is the labor force is picking up, which is good news. As more people are working, there is more income, more spending, they pay more taxes, so that’s what you want to see.”
Adjusted for seasonality, the county added 8,800 jobs from October to November, the state reports. Gin said he adjusted the unemployment rate to 5.9 percent, a tick up from 5.8 percent in October, while Reaser had it unchanged at 5.8 percent. Gin said he believes San Diego County’s jobless rate could fall to 4.8 percent by the end of 2015.
California added 90,100 payroll jobs in November as the state’s unemployment rate dipped slightly, to 7.2 percent. The state figures show continuing improvement since the jobless rate hit a recession-era high of 12.4 percent in February 2010.
The jobless rate declined just slightly from 7.3 percent, where it had held steady in September and October. The state was still above the national unemployment rate of 5.8 percent for November.
California has added more than 1.5 million nonfarm payroll jobs since the recession. A year ago, the state’s jobless rate stood at 8.4 percent, but it has added more than 344,000 jobs since then. Unemployment claims were roughly the same, with 392,610 people receiving unemployment benefits. That was up slightly over October.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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