The coronavirus pandemic may have altered the dynamics of California’s labor market for the long term, according to a briefing by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. on Oct. 25.
“Worker shortages in California are indicating that the pandemic may have resulted in a structural change in the state’s employment,” Shannon Sedgwick, director of the LAEDC’s Institute for Applied Economics, said in the briefing. “Decreased foreign immigration into California means less of an inflow of workers and increased migration of workers, especially blue-collar workers, to other states where real estate and the cost of living is cheaper, could have a negative impact on the state’s economy.”
According to data released Oct. 22 by the California Employment Development Department, L.A. County’s 8.2 percent unemployment was higher than the state average of 6.4 percent and Ventura County’s 5.3 percent. Nationally, unemployment was 4.8 percent in September.
Federal unemployment benefits and supplemental payments to unemployed and self-employed workers ended by Sept. 11. Economists and business owners forecast that workers would be more inclined to find work with reduced benefits. While unemployment insurance claims have decreased, the September job report indicates only 56 percent of non-farm jobs that were lost in April and May 2020 have been recovered.