By Bruce Stenslie / Economic Development Collaborative-Ventura County
California’s Labor Market Information Division released its December 2011 report … continuing for a fifth month in row improvements across our key indicators. For the details see www.calmis.ca.gov/file/lfmonth/vent$pds.pdf
There are two key points of note:
One, at first blush, the numbers look modest, even weak for Ventura County, with a net increase of only 200 jobs in December.
Second, don’t let the net increase number fool you. Far more important is that our private sector, non-farm industries added 2,900 jobs in December. This is the strongest November-to-December gain we’ve seen in Ventura County since the year 2000.
While the overall trend lines all look good, there’s of course still a long ways to go for recovery. Following are some observations on what’s behind the December data:
What lowered our net job growth data for December were four sectors that lost jobs. Farm employment declined by a very large 2,200 jobs in December. This is a cyclical change, and looking longer term, we’re still up in Farm jobs, by 200, since December 2010. Government also shed 500 jobs, distributed broadly across federal, state and local, though concentrated mostly in cities, which lost 200. Education and Health Services dropped 300 jobs and Construction another 200. It’s difficult to read a lot into these losses, though it’s worth noting again that until we start building things in Ventura County — and putting the more than 10,000 lost construction jobs back into play — it will be extremely difficult to have a more sizable and lasting impact on our high unemployment rates.
Leading the increase in private sector job gains was Leisure and Hospitality, a sector that doesn’t normally show a significant November-to-December increase. The one month jump was 1,400 jobs, an encouraging figure, indicating that hotels and restaurants are experiencing a continuing resurgence, up by 1,900 jobs since a year ago.
Also showing a robust gain was Professional & Business Services, up by 1,000 jobs, distributed widely across administrative and management services. This sector is also up by 1,800 jobs since last year, a great sign as these tend to be some of the highest paying jobs.
Finally, for major jobs gains, the Retail sector added 800 jobs in December, a good but not great number for the holiday season. Our two-month (November and December) gain this year was 2,300 jobs, only slightly better than our ten year average of 2,130 jobs added for the holiday season. As noted in prior months, the far more interesting question will be how many of these jobs are sustainable going into the new year.
Shifting from jobs to workers, and looking at the unemployment rate, our improvement was more modest, from 9.5 percent in November to 9.4 percent in December. The improvement was modest owing to the seasonal loss of 2,200 Farm jobs.
While the unemployment rate wasn’t vastly improved, we did see positive movement in more workers entering the labor force, more workers employed and fewer workers unemployed. All three of these indicators continue to move in the right direction, though far too slowly for our satisfaction.
Finally, for a look at our relative position among California’s counties — as measured by the unemployment rate — Ventura County fell from 12th to 15th out of 58. I’m confident our position will recover in the next couple of months, with our December data inordinately impacted by the cycles of Farm employment. The comparative numbers may be viewed at www.calmis.ca.gov/file/lfmonth/1112pcou.pdf
Any questions about the data or report, please let me know.
— Bruce Stenslie is president and chief executive officer of the Economic Development Collaborative-Ventura County. For more information, call 805.384.1800, ext. 24, send an email to bruce.stenslie@edc-vc.com or visit http://www.edc-vc.com/