Los Angeles is losing a little steam on the jobs front. The region’s unemployment rate nudged up in April to about 5.5 percent, according to CoStar, a tick above the national rate and a reminder that parts of the local labor market are still on shaky ground. Employers and analysts are now eyeing the data to see whether this is a one-month wobble or the early stages of a broader slowdown.
The latest numbers arrived later than usual after the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics worked through a backlog created by an October government closure, a delay noted by CoStar. Once the federal data finally dropped, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the national unemployment rate held at 4.3 percent in April and that nonfarm payrolls climbed by about 115,000 jobs, according to the BLS Employment Situation.
Why County, Metro, and National Numbers Do Not Quite Match
Zoom in to the county level and the picture shifts slightly. The California Employment Development Department put Los Angeles County’s preliminary, not-seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate at 5.2 percent in April. In its latest release, California EDD also reported that, across the state, Information jobs posted the largest month-over-month decline, while private education and health services led the way in new hiring.
Where The Job Pain Is Showing
Both CoStar’s regional data and state tables point to the same sore spot: the Information sector. In the Los Angeles area, CoStar found that information jobs logged the steepest drop from March to April. That slump lines up with reporting that Hollywood and related media and tech employers have been trimming staff, a trend that has put pressure on county payrolls, according to the Los Angeles Times.
What To Watch Next
The fuller story for the Los Angeles metro area is still to come. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is set to publish metropolitan-area employment and unemployment tables for April on June 3, which will finally allow a clean apples-to-apples comparison of metro, county, and state figures, according to the BLS release schedule. For now, the split between CoStar’s 5.5 percent regional reading and the state’s 5.2 percent county rate suggests Los Angeles is stuck in a patchy recovery, with gains clustered in health care while the Information sector and parts of the entertainment economy continue to lag.
