California’s economy has been in an extended slowdown for most of the last two years, according to the outlook.
“Outside of government and health care, the state has added no jobs in a year and a half,” the report said.
The October unemployment figures reflected the glum report. California’s jobless rate rose to 5.4 percent, its highest level since the pandemic, according to the state Employment Development Department data.
Job numbers decreased in technology, manufacturing, and construction over the past 12 months, while jobs in health care, finance, transportation, hospitality, government, and professional services rose, the department reported Nov. 15.
The number of Californians without jobs was 1.05 million in October, an increase of more than 13,000 from September and 54,500 since October 2023.
California reached a height of 16.1 percent unemployment in April 2020, a month after the state shut down the economy in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The jobless rate then dropped to a low point of 3.8 percent in August 2023, before starting to rise again.
The steady decline in the job market was confirmed by fiscal experts who say the state faces an extended slowdown as private-sector job growth continues to stall.
The October numbers show it was a good decision for the majority of voters on Nov. 5 to reject California’s proposed minimum wage hike to $18, according to Marc Joffe, a political analyst at the Cato Institute think tank.
“California’s 5.4 percent unemployment rate is 1.3 percent above the national level and 1.6 percent above its 2022 trough,” Joffe, a Walnut Creek, California, resident, posted on X Wednesday. “Voters were wise to reject the minimum wage increase.”
Unemployment hits some groups harder than others, according to a Nov. 19 report by the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonprofit and nonpartisan think tank.
“Younger workers in California have experienced the largest increases in unemployment, to levels higher than before the pandemic,” according to the report.
The unemployment rate for residents ages 20 to 24 was 10.3 percent in October, compared with 6.6 percent pre-pandemic, according to the institute.
Growth in health care jobs, educational service, and other services like home and auto services, has kept California’s job market afloat, the institute said.
As of October, those sectors have grown this year. Health care positions have increased by 16 percent, educational services by 8 percent, and other services ticked up by 1.4 percent, the institute reported.
Of the government-related jobs in California, growth in transportation outpaced all other sectors this year, with 15 percent more jobs now than before the pandemic.
