(Updated with comments from Ron Mason and unemployment numbers for Los Angeles and Riverside counties.)

Unemployment in Orange County rocketed to a modern-day record 9.2% in June from a revised 8.8% in May, mostly due to college graduates and others entering the job market, according to numbers released by the state Employment Development Department today.

There were 6,700 more people looking for work in Orange County last month than in May but payroll employment held steady at 1.4 million.

Chapman University economist Esmael Adibi said the increase in the jobless rate was expected.

"The unemployment rate always surges during the summer," he said. "The labor force increased but employment was not there to support it."

The report, however, held at least a glimmer of hope.

"The positive is that payroll employment held steady and the rate of job loss is not increasing," Adibi said. "Don't count on this improving anytime soon, but it's stabilizing."

He said there are also signs of improvement in the broader economy — the stock market is up, corporate profits are improving, housing starts are edging up and inventories are down.

"The economy, I believe, is hitting bottom although there are no signs the job market has hit bottom," he said.

Employers have cut 70,800 non-farm payroll jobs in the last year with nearly every sector suffering losses.  Educational and health services, which had been a stalwart, added no net new jobs over the last year.  Other services saw 100 new positions.

Cuts in government jobs are now beginning to show up.  There were 4,000 fewer workers at all levels of government last month than in June 2008.

Construction employment declined by 12,200 in the last 12 months, with 81% of the losses among specialty trade contractors.

Although the numbers reflect a tough job market, there are employers hiring.  Kirsten Mangers, chief executive of WebVisible, an Irvine-based provider of local online marketing and services, ramped up her workforce over the last year, adding 40 people in Orange County.

The staff has gotten so big that she had to lease more space from the Irvine Co. for the overflow.  Like many executives, she's waiting for a few more signs the economy is turning but she expects to continue to do selective hiring in sales, development, quality assurance and support staff.

Ron Mason, a principal in the healthcare practice at the consulting firm Towers Perrin in Irvine, says he's not seeing a lot of hiring in Orange County, but most businesses appear to have stabilized.

"Health care, pharma, biotech tend to have been more stable," he said. "But nothing looks great right now at retailers."

Mason said some firms are having a tough time trying to figure out how to right size themselves.

"One client overdid (layoffs) a bit and brought back 20% of the people, then laid them off again," Mason said.

Even with its record unemployment rate, Orange County was the only county in the six metro areas in Southern California that isn't in the double digits.  Los Angeles hit 11.4% and Riverside soared to 13.9%.

Statewide, unemployment remained unchanged at 11.6% after May's rate was revised up from 11.5%. California employers cut 66,500 additional jobs during the month. The state has lost 766,300 jobs in the last year.

As bad as the employment picture is in California, it's worse in other states. California has the sixth highest unemployment rate.  It had been in the top three or four.

Michigan led the country with an unemployment rate of 15.2%. The last state to have unemployment that high was West Virginia in 1984, said the U.S. Labor Department.

Unemployment nationwide was 9.5% in June.

See a breakdown of Orange County's unemployment for June HERE.

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Posted in: Economy • Economy • Jobs • Meltdown • Unemployment |

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