L.A. County’s unemployment rate rose again to 5.8% in September from 5.6% in August, its highest level since early 2022. The uptick came despite modest growth of 6,100 payroll jobs for the month.
Those are the key takeaways from the monthly Los Angeles County unemployment and payroll jobs data release on Oct. 18 from the state Employment Development Department.
The rise in the unemployment rate was due in part to an increase of 17,000 in the size of the labor force compared to August. That follows an increase of 19,000 in August compared to July. The data appear to indicate more Los Angeles County residents are entering or re-entering the labor force.
In September of last year, the unemployment rate stood at 5.2%.
The county’s unemployment rate was above the statewide average for September of 5.3% and well above the national average of 4.1%.
The Employment Development Department also released a breakout of August unemployment rates by city, though unlike the countywide average, these are not adjusted for seasonal factors. The rates for the two largest cities in the county – Los Angeles and Long Beach – were identical at 6.1% – down substantially from 6.8% in August.
Among cities with labor forces exceeding 10,000, Lomita had the lowest seasonally-unadjusted unemployment rate of 2.5% in September, while Calabasas had the highest rate at 8.6%.
For cities in the San Fernando, Santa Clarita, Antelope and Conejo valleys with labor forces exceeding 10,000, the city of San Fernando had the lowest seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate in September of 4.6%, followed by Santa Clarita (5.6%) and then Glendale (5.8%).
At the high end in the quad-valley area, after Calabasas and its 8.6% unemployment rate in September, next were Lancaster (8.2%) and Palmdale (8.1%). Burbank’s rate came in at 7.3%.
Turning to employer payrolls, September’s increase of 6,100 jobs was a drop from the 13,700 jobs added on net in August and brought the total nonfarm payroll jobs tally in the county to 4,577,200.
The biggest increase came in the education sector – no surprise given that many schools began their academic year in September. The sector posted an addition of 15,600 payroll jobs across the spectrum from K-12 public schools, state colleges and universities and private schools.
To account for this expected seasonal increase, the state also released a seasonally adjusted payroll jobs figure for September that showed a slight drop of 1,600 jobs compared to August.
Returning to the unadjusted figures, the only other industries registering a significant increase in payroll jobs in September were health care/social assistance (up 4,000 jobs), retail trade (up 1,300 jobs) and transportation/warehousing (up 1,200 jobs).
On the downside, the accommodation/food services subsector posted the biggest drop of 5,800 payroll jobs in September as the summer tourism season wound down. Next was the motion picture/sound recording industry (down 2,800 jobs) followed by construction (down 1,300 jobs).
For the 12 months ending in September, employers in the county added on net about 60,000 jobs for a year-over-year increase of 1.3%. That year-over-year increase figure is markedly lower than the 1.7% posted for the 12 months ending in August.
More than half of the 12-month job gain came from the health care/social assistance sector, which added nearly 37,000 payroll jobs. Other major gainers included accommodation/food services (up about 9,000 jobs), motion picture/sound recording (up nearly 7,000 jobs) and retail trade (up 4,700 jobs).
The professional/business services sector posted the biggest drop in payrolls (down 8,800) for the 12 months ending in September, nearly identical to the drop for the 12 months ending in August. Most of those came in the administrative/support services subsector, which posted a drop of 5,000 jobs.
Not far behind was the manufacturing sector, which on net shed about 4,500 jobs during the 12 months ending in September. This continues a decades-long sectoral decline: the total of 313,000 employed in manufacturing in September was down by nearly 500,000 jobs from the total recorded in September 1990, representing a drop of more than 60%.
