Daylight in COVID economy? Unemployment falls in Sacramento and other California areas
Sacramento’s economy showed signs of emerging from its COVID-19 slumber last month, as hiring perked up and the unemployment rate fell.
The Employment Development Department said Friday that unemployment in the four-county Sacramento region fell to 7.2% in February, a drop of four-tenths of a point. Employers added 9,100 jobs to regional payrolls.
Notably, the leisure and hospitality sector picked up 2,500 jobs, its first increase since November, as stay-at-home restrictions began to be eased and workers were rehired by restaurants and hotels. The healthcare and social services sector added 2,000 jobs.
Yet the latest numbers also showed how far the economy remains in the hole after a year of COVID-19 shutdowns. Sacramento’s unemployment is nearly double the 3.7% reported a year ago. The restaurant industry, for example, employs 20,000 fewer workers than it did, a decline of about 25%.
A similar story is playing out across California. The state’s unemployment rate fell a half-point in February, to 8.5%, as employers added 141,000 jobs. But as strong as those gains were, they still failed to offset the job losses from December and January, when Gov. Gavin Newsom put the state into another major lockdown amid a surge in coronavirus infections.
All told, the state has only recouped 39% of the 2.7 million jobs that disappeared during the initial stay-at-home order last spring.
‘There’s a reason for caution’ on California jobless numbers
Michael Bernick, a labor lawyer in San Francisco and one-time EDD director, said the economy continues to face considerable headwinds. More than 95,000 Californians filed initial claims for unemployment last week, he said — more than double the weekly totals recorded before the pandemic.
Friday’s job numbers “aren’t an illusion, but at the same time there’s a reason for caution,” Bernick said.
On the other hand, ramped-up vaccine distribution and other factors, including the latest federal stimulus package, are expected to help job creation in the coming months.
“After the virus-induced pause, the state’s job machine has been turned on,” said Sung Won Sohn, business economist at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, in a note to reporters.
“The best stimulus for the economy is coming from the vaccines,” he added. On Thursday, Newsom announced that Californians 50 and older will become eligible for COVID-19 shots on April 1, and everyone 16 and up will be eligible on April 15. However, it’s likely that it will still take months for supply to catch up to demand.
Many other California metro areas showed improvement in unemployment in February, although some of the gains were modest.
▪ Fresno’s rate fell to 9.9% from 10.1% a month earlier.
▪ Modesto’s rate fell to 9% from 9.4%.
▪ Merced unemployment fell to 11.5% from 11.6%.
▪ San Luis Obispo’s rate fell to 6.3% from 6.8%.
Among California’s largest cities, San Francisco’s rate fell to 5.5% from 6% a month earlier, while Los Angeles dropped to 11.5% from 12.6%.
This story was originally published March 26, 2021 at 9:44 AM with the headline "Daylight in COVID economy? Unemployment falls in Sacramento and other California areas."