Politics & Government

High Unemployment Rate Tempers Job Growth

California is seeing a surge in jobs, but the unemployment rate continues to grow.

This Labor Day, state economic analysts are hoping a recent surge in jobs reflects a continued trend toward economic recovery.

But despite progressive signs of state job growth, the state's unemployment rate remains at a near record high at 12 percent.

Glendora’s unemployment rate jumped to 7 percent in August 2011, up 0.6 percent since March 2011.

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Still, there are reasons to be optimistic, according to the Employment Development Department. California is seeing the fastest job growth since the boom year of 2006, more rapidly than the rest of the nation, according to the department's 2011 Labor Day Briefing.

With the majority of jobs coming from the private sector, the state saw an increase of 189,400 jobs from July 2010 to July 2011, a 1.4 percent increase in a one-year period.

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The nation saw a 1.0 percent increase during the same period.

The fields gaining the most job growth were:

  • Profession and business services with 59,400 jobs, most of which coming from the high-wage Professional, scientific, and technical services subsector.
  • Educational and health services sector with 34,600 jobs.
  • The information job field gained 30,000 jobs.

Still, both state and local government sectors saw major cutbacks, tempering the state job growth trend, according to the briefing.

From July 2009 to July 2011, the government sector lost 138,000 jobs –  128,100 coming from local governments. Financial activities were among the hardest hit with a loss of 3,100 jobs.

For the 2011-2012 fiscal year, Glendora cut 5 full-time positions to make up for a more than $700,000 budget shortfall.

Despite the encouraging upward trend, analysts say the state still has a long way to go before the state can see full recovery.

According to the briefing, “the economic recovery had yet to generate sufficient employment growth to make much of a dent in unemployment.”

 The 2011 Labor Day Briefing can be found on EDD's website.


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