
The yin and the yang of our California employment picture
California’s employment figures have definitely improved from the depths of our disastrous recession. Our Left Coast state suffered worse from the downturn than the rest of the country, and have until recently lagged in the recovery. Democrats like to paint California today as experiencing a “miracle” rebound, with CA leading the nation in the employment surge. They are in some ways right. And dead wrong.
Let’s drill down a bit into the numbers to get a more complete picture. The devil is in the details, as they say. After lagging for years, we had a surge in CA jobs in 2015. But that surge seems to be petering out, as the numbers below indicate.
First, let’s be clear. We have NOT fully recovered from the recession. Nor are we doing better than the country’s average unemployment figures. But we have had a recent surge to narrow the gap. Here’s my latest figures from the BLS:
The CA unemployment rate(Dec, 2016) has been improving. We are tied for tenth worst – 5.2%. National unemployment rate is 4.7%.Nat’l … Read More