Friday, May 21, 2010

Unemployment Friday

Another month of moving sideways in the California job market. Unemployment remains at it's all-time high at 12.6%. California non-farm employment is up to 14,200, however federal government employment increased by 13,600 - primarily temp jobs through the Census. The state has been lagging about a quarter behind the U.S. recovery, and if that pattern holds we should finally start seeing solid job gains in California in the next 2 months.

In the Valley, April is the month when unemployment moves down with seasonal patterns and we saw normal seasonal decreases across the board. I think we can finally say we have seen the worst of the sky-high unemployment rates. Outside of a surprisingly low decrease of 200 durable goods manufacturing jobs in Stockton, the NUMMI impacts are not readily apparant in the data.

NUMMI was very apparant in the East Bay with a direct loss of 4500 transportation equipment manufacturing job. The impact was large enough to offset some modest growth in other areas so that the East Bay lost more than 2,000 jobs on a seasonally adjusted basis. San Francisco has yet to see job growth.

The South Bay continues to be the only area in Northern California that is showing clear job growth, mainly due to the recovery of the technology sector.

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