L.A. County’s job-creation machine continued in full gear in November as employers in the county added 32,000 jobs to their payrolls and pushed the total jobs number over 4.7 million for the first time ever, according to state figures released on Dec. 22.
The news from the state Employment Development Department was not so rosy on the unemployment front, however. The county’s unemployment rate ticked up once again to 5.3% in November from 5.2% in October. After hovering in the 4.9% to 5% range for much of the year, the unemployment rate has in the last three months pushed higher out of that range.
The unemployment figures come from a survey of households in Los Angeles County, while the payroll jobs figures come from a sampling of employer payroll data submitted to the state. For the past three months, these sets of figures have been moving in different directions.
In December, the county’s labor force fell by 19,000 to exactly 5 million from November’s level, accounting for nearly all of the decrease in the number of people saying they were employed.
As for the payroll jobs figure, the total of 4,717,900 jobs posted in November was the highest ever recorded, eclipsing the 4,650,800 mark from pre-pandemic Dec. 2019.
To achieve November’s net gain of 32,000 of payroll jobs from October, employers in just about every sector of the local economy reported net additions of jobs, led by a seasonal gain of 10,000 jobs in the retail sector as store owners geared up for the holiday season.
The Employment Development Department also released a seasonally adjusted payroll employment total that adjusts for seasonal factors such as this; that figure showed a gain of nearly 14,000 jobs.
The other sector with major job gains in November was motion picture/sound recording, which posted a net gain of 8,000 jobs from October. That gain reflected the settlement of the Writers Guild of America strike in late September. Another gain in this sector is likely with next…
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