Glendora's Unemployment Rate Nearly Six Points Below County Average

California welcomed encouraging economic news as the state’s unemployment rate decreased to 12.2 percent in February. 

According to a report released Friday by the Employment Development Department, unemployment rates showed slight improvements since January, including a 0.3 percent drop in the Los Angeles County unemployment rate from 12.9 percent in January 2011 to 12.6 percent in March (seasonally adjusted).

According to seasonally adjusted figures, Los Angeles County civilian employment increased by 10,000 to 4,284,000 in February 2011, while unemployment decreased by 15,000 to 617,000 since January.

In Glendora, where the unemployment rate is well below the state and county average at 6.4 percent, there has been 0.5 percent decrease since January (not seasonally adjusted).

The EDD also noted an increase of 96,500 nonfarm jobs over the last month in California, totaling 14,055,900 in the state. 

According to the EDD, the figures are based on a survey of businesses. A second federal survey of households, which was based on a smaller sample, showed that employment opportunities increased by 12,000 from January, but was down by 36,000 from the employment total in February of last year.

Figures also showed the number of persons who worked part -time for economic reasons decreased 37,000 (2.4 percent) from February 2010.

While the latest unemployment figures show slight improvement, the journey to full economic recovery is moving at a crawl. The city's unemployment rate was just 2.7 percent in 2005 (not seasonally adjusted).

Former mayor Ken Herman pointed to an economic upswing in Glendora during his State of the City address in January, but noted that the recovery won’t come in immediate future.

“We are about to leave the economic doldrums and enter a phase of growth,” Herman said. “But it’s going to take quite a few years to get back to where we were.”