Lake County Unemployment Rises

As the unemployment numbers for the state of California and the country improved modestly, Lake County’s unemployment numbers increased in the month of October. This comes after Lake County enjoyed somewhat better numbers in the month of September.

California saw its unemployment rate decreased from 11.9 to 11.7 percent between September and October. This number is compared to 12.5 percent in October of 2010. The reason for the dip was 25,700 nonfarm jobs were added to payrolls across the state.

The country’s unemployment rate dropped from 9.1 percent in September to 9 percent in October, a number that is down from 9.7 percent in 2010 and 10.1 percent in 2009. These numbers are provided by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The unemployment rate for Lake County rose to 16.2 percent in October, which increased from 15.8 percent in September. On the other hand, the number is less than that of October 2010, which was 17.6 percent.

There are 58 counties in California, and Lake comes in at 53 in terms of unemployment. The lowest unemployment numbers in the state come from Marin County, which registers at 7.2 percent. The highest count is Imperial, with 28.9 percent unemployment numbers.

The workforce of Lake County was just over 24,300 people in October, with 3,950 of them unemployed. The numbers for September were 24,860 workers with 3,930 unemployed in the county. Across the state, close to 494,750 people were receiving unemployment benefits during October, which is compared to 494,882 in September and 592,475 in 2010.

According to the state, there were 2,123,000 unemployed persons, which decreased by 28,000 over the past month, and decreased by 144,000 compared to October of 2010. There were 35,500 jobs gained over the past month in the areas of construction; information; financial activities; professional and business services; educational and health services; leisure and hospitality; and other services. The category with the largest increase, 17,300 new jobs, was professional and business services.

The state said that there were four industries that lose jobs, 9,800 of them, in the month of October. Those four categories include mining and logging; manufacturing; trade, transportation and utilities; and government. The two industries that posted the largest decline of jobs were government and manufacturing. Each industry lost 3,900 jobs over the past month.

Over the past year, nine industries boasted gains in jobs and they include mining and logging; construction; manufacturing; trade, transportation and utilities; information; professional and business services; educational and health services; leisure and hospitality; and government. Those industries added 243,700 jobs. The largest increase in the state was professional and business services, with 83,300 jobs added, a four percent increase.

The information industry had the largest gain based on a percentage, increasing 5.9 percent with 25,400 new jobs as reported by the Employment Development Department. The industries of financial activities and other services suffered job losses over the previous year. Those two industries lost 4,700 jobs. Other services suffered 2,400 of those job losses, a decrease of one-half of a percent.