- Elizabeth Larson
- Posted On
Lake County unemployment more than doubles since start of COVID-19 pandemic shutdown; state jobless rate jumps to record high
The California Employment Development Department said the state’s unemployment rate rose to a record-high 15.5 percent in April, compared to the 5.5-percent rate reported in March.
California’s unemployment rate for April eclipses the previous record high rate in the current data series of 12.3 percent at the height of the Great Recession – March, October, and November of 2010.
“The unprecedented job losses are like nothing before seen in California history in a current data series that dates back to 1976, and are a direct result of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic,” the agency reported.
In Lake County, unemployment rose to 15.2 percent in April, up from 7.3 percent in March and 5 percent in April 2019, based on state records.
That’s not Lake County’s highest unemployment during the three-decade-long data series.
The record so far, based on historical data, is 17.5 percent, which was reached in December 2009.
Data supplied by the Employment Development Department showed that out of Lake County’s 28,320-member civilian workforce in April, there were 4,310 unemployed county residents compared to 2,110 in March, 1,690 in February and 1,460 in April 2019.
Across industry sectors, agriculture in Lake County actually rose by 2.2 percent in April, while the nonfarm sector showed a 10.8 percent drop.
Hardest hit was the leisure and hospitality industry, a key economic contributor in Lake County, which showed a 31.5 percent drop, followed by government, -21.2 percent; other services, -19.6 percent; service producing, -11 percent; and goods producing, -7.9 percent.
Lake County was ranked No. 30 out of California’s 58 counties for its March jobless rate, tying with Sonoma County.
Neighboring county jobless rates and ranks for April are: Colusa, 26.3 percent, No. 57; Glenn, 16.2 percent, No. 38; Mendocino, 14.8 percent, No. 26; Napa, 15.9 percent, No. 36; Sonoma, 15.2 percent, No. 30; and Yolo, 11.9 percent, No. 5.
The lowest unemployment rate in the state was in Marin County, 11.1 percent, while the highest was in Imperial County, which the Employment Development Department said registered a 28-percent rate.
State, nation register record-breaking job losses
California payroll jobs totaled 15,049,300 in April 2020, down 2,344,700 from March 2020 and down 2,324,000 from April of last year.
The state’s month-over non-farm payroll job loss of 2,344,7002 for April is the largest on record, the Employment Development Department reported.
April’s job loss total for California is over one million more than the job loss the state experienced during two and a half years of the Great Recession, when 1,318,400 jobs were lost between July 2007 and February 2010, according to the report.
The Employment Development Department said the number of unemployed Californians rose to almost 2.9 million over just two months, surpassing the previous 2.2 million peak during the recession that took more than two years to reach.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday that April’s nationwide unemployment rate rose more than 10 percent to 14.7 percent, compared to 4.4 percent in March and 3.6 percent in March 2019.
The agency’s report said nonfarm payroll employment decreased in all 50 states and the District of Columbia in April.
Nevada had the highest unemployment rate in April, 28.2 percent, followed by Michigan, 22.7 percent, and Hawaii, 22.3 percent. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said the rates in 43 states set new highs in a data series that began in 1976.
The report said Connecticut had the lowest unemployment rate, 7.9 percent, followed by Minnesota and Nebraska, 8.1 percent and 8.3 percent, respectively. In total, 27 states and the District of Columbia had unemployment rates lower than the U.S., 10 states had higher rates, and 13 states had rates that were not appreciably different from that of the nation.
Industries impacted across the board
The Employment Development Department said every one of California’s 11 industry sectors lost jobs in April.
The hardest hit was the leisure and hospitality industry, which posted the largest job loss statewide, with a loss of 866,200 jobs, which was more than double that of trade, transportation and utilities (-388,700), the state’s second-largest industry sector loss. Mining and logging posted the smallest job loss, down by 500 jobs.
The number of jobs in the agriculture industry decreased by 94,500 jobs from March to 322,500. The agricultural industry has lost 94,300 farm jobs since April 2019.
Employed Californians and Unemployment Insurance claims
The number of Californians holding jobs in April was 15,682,900, a decrease of 2,432,900 from March and down 2,852,700 from the employment total in April of last year, the state said.
At the same time, the Employment Development Department said the number of unemployed Californians was 2,885,300 in April, an increase of 1,833,100 over the month and up by 2,078,800 compared with April of last year.
In related data that figures into the state’s unemployment rate, the Employment Development Department there were 1,889,250 people certifying for Unemployment Insurance benefits during the April 2020 sample week. This is a sample week that includes the 19th of each month. That compares to 424,645 people in the sample week of March 2020 and 364,431 people in the sample week of April 2019.
Concurrently, the state said 325,516 initial claims were processed in the April 2020 sample week, which was a month-over increase of 139,037 claims from March 2020 and a year-over increase of 281,485 claims from April 2019.
The most recent Unemployment Insurance filing numbers for Lake County only go through the beginning of March. During the first three months of the year, Lake County had actually shown a downward trend in Unemployment Insurance claims, reporting 1,028 claims in January, 914 in February and 836 in March.
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