SLO County just posted its lowest unemployment rate ever

The unemployment rate in San Luis Obispo County fell to 2.1% in May 2022, the lowest rate ever recorded in the county.

The next lowest rate recorded was 2.4% in April of this year and in a few months of 2018 and 2019, prior to the pandemic, according to the Employment Development Department.

Figures have been collected since 1990, said Andri Moskalyk, EDD spokesperson. The very low jobless rate here reflects the economic recovery since COVID-19 hit the U.S. in 2020, spiking unemployment in SLO County to 12.7% in May 2020.

SLO County’s rate is less than half of the state’s, which stood at 4.3% in May, down from a high of 16.1% in April 2020.

Moskalyk noted that using figures from a separate jobs report covering households, the county has seen a year-over-year increase in the labor force of 3,300 people. But the total is still down 2,800 from May 2019, before the pandemic hit. The latest labor force number is 137,700 in May 2022 compared to 140,500 available for work that were in the labor force in May 2019.

”We’re not sure what happened to those people and whether some of them listed back then will still return to the SLO market to look for a job,” Moskalyk said.

Clearly, some have moved away as they coped with poor job prospects and high cost-of-living impacts during that time. The jobs are back, but the high costs are still there.

There is the prospect that the downturn in the economy led by sky-high oil prices in recent weeks could drive the jobless rate back up going forward. Just this Friday, oil futures experienced a big drop based on the Fed raising the interest rates the day before.

Still, the lowest jobless rate ever — less than half what it was a year ago at 5.2% — is a significant improvement. California numbers for May show the state has now regained 93% (2,565,100) of the 2,758,900 non-farm jobs lost during March and April of 2020 due to the pandemic.

Other facts from the EDD analysis:

Of the 390,000 U.S. non-farm jobs gained in May, California accounted for 11% of them.

At 869,300 jobs, California had the largest absolute year-over-year seasonally adjusted job increase in the nation in May.

California has enjoyed month-over-month gains in non-farm jobs in 15 of the past 16 months, totaling a 1,481,800 job gain over that time period.

Eight of California’s 11 industry sectors gained jobs in May with Information (plus 8,800) posting the largest increase. The sector’s growth was due in part to increases in the motion picture and sound recording industries.

Leisure and hospitality (plus 8,800), which suffered some of the largest losses during the pandemic, showed strong growth yet again and has now added 816,900 jobs since April 2020 after losing nearly a million jobs due to the COVID-19.

Trade, transportation and utilities suffered the largest monthly job loss (minus 3,700) due to reductions in retail trade (specifically general merchandise stores).

The EDD industry jobs report shows 2,800 more jobs in SLO County than a year earlier with 1,000 more of those in the leisure and hospitality sector.

John Lindt is the editor of Sierra2theSeat.net.