Local government jobs fueled job growth in San Diego County last month, with the unemployment rate dropping to 4.4% in March, state labor officials reported Friday.
The county's figure is lower than the state's tax rate of 5.3 percent, but higher than the U.S. average of 3.9 percent for the same period. This was also down from the local rate of 4.8% revised in February.
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“While it's encouraging to see that (the unemployment rate) is down compared to last month, there are some signs that there are some weaknesses in the San Diego economy,” said University of San Diego economist Alan Ginn.
Jin said the cause for concern was slowing job growth in some of the region's key sectors, such as manufacturing, and high-wage jobs in professional, scientific and technical services.
He added that he's a little concerned that San Diego's unemployment rate is higher than the national unemployment rate because “when the economy is good, it's usually below the national level.”
That said, several industries saw solid activity.
San Diego added about 4,400 jobs in March, most of which came from government payrolls, which added about 2,000 jobs. These monthly increases were followed by an increase of 1,500 jobs in the leisure and hospitality industry, and an increase of about 1,300 jobs in the construction industry.
The San Diego area has the highest demand for jobs after Los Angeles. According to state data This is a compilation of job information for March. Health care was the top job market in San Diego last month, with registered nurses the top hiring occupation with more than 2,300 job openings.
Jin said it's not surprising that registered nurses are in high demand because it's a hiring trend that predates the pandemic by more than a decade.
The top employers in March were the University of California, San Diego, Sharp Healthcare, and Scripps Health.
San Diego added about 14,500 jobs over the past year, an increase of 0.9%.
San Diego's private education and health services sector (including nursing and social assistance) led the year-over-year job growth, creating 15,500 jobs. These industries reported local employment increases in 10 of the past 12 months.
Government hiring, primarily in regional offices, added 6,200 jobs over the past year. Over the same period, the leisure and hospitality industry added 5,300 jobs.
San Diego County's labor force (adults who have a job or are actively looking for one) was 1.6 million people in March, down less than 1 percent in a year. The labor force population remained unchanged from February to March.
At General Dynamics NASSCO, workers emerged from the shipyard at the end of their shift on Friday, April 19, during a shift change.
(Nelvin C. Cepeda/San Diego Union-Tribune)
The largest annual job loss was in the professional and business services sector, which has lost about 10,600 jobs since March of last year. This includes jobs in law, science, waste management, and architecture. These jobs often pay well in major fields such as biotechnology in San Diego.
Similarly, the largest local job losses in March were in the professional and business services sector, with about 1,200 jobs lost between February and March.
“San Diego has been rebelling since 2022.” national trends “Driven by a slow and steady decline in local scientific research and development services, the growth rate of this industrial cluster has declined significantly,” said Karen Boyd, economist and director of research at the San Diego Regional Policy Innovation Center. he said.
He blamed the decline in local scientific research and development services on layoffs in San Diego's biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors, a major employment hub for the region. Many of San Diego's tech companies have been “rightsizing” after the pandemic caused a surge in hiring and a drop in venture capital investment.
“While these layoffs are having a negative impact on workers and the region, they likely reflect slower growth due to COVID-19 rather than any fundamental weakness in the industry.” Boyd said.
Local manufacturing also shed 3,100 jobs. Financial activities (real estate, insurance, investments) lost 1,900 jobs. And the information sector (broadcasting, telecommunications, newspapers and publishing industries) lost about 1,000 jobs compared to the previous year.
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in March was 4.6%, unchanged from February's adjusted unemployment rate, said Daniel Enemark, chief economist at the San Diego Regional Center for Policy and Innovation.
As for the slight decline in the non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate, Enemark said it was typical for March. In the San Diego region, the March unemployment rate is down 78% over the past decade, excluding an outlier in 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic began, he said.
State officials do not adjust unemployment rates for individual counties seasonally. Compared to the rest of California, San Diego County ranked in the middle with an unemployment rate of 4.4%, as unemployment rates decreased month-over-month in most counties.
The rate was 5.2% in Los Angeles County, 3.9% in Orange County, 3.7% in San Francisco County, 4.1% in Santa Clara County, 7.4% in Santa Cruz County and 5.2% in Riverside County.
