Unemployment in the Inland Empire

The unemployment rate in the Inland Empire (San Bernardino and Riverside counties) went up slightly in January to 12.4  (the latest figures available), but the number of jobs added increased compared to January 2011, according to a March 10 article on the Coachella Valley newspaper, MyDesert.com.

The article reports on the California Employment Development Department’s (EDD) March 9 report that saw that the non-farm job rate increased by 19,400 jobs, to 1.14 million over the past year.

According to the article:

“‘A 1.7 percent job growth rate is not a solid or strong recovery; nonetheless, companies are hiring people,’ said Esmael Adibi, an economist with the A. Gary Anderson Center for Economic Research at Chapman University.

“’We’d like to see that growth rate not at 1.7 percent but at 3 or 4 percent,” he said. “That’s really when you make a big dent in the unemployment rate.’”

Jobs in the construction sector took a huge hit when the housing market collapse and recession hit. Yet a March 13 story on InlandNewsToday.comreported that “

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onstruction is no longer the biggest loser. Most job losses last year were in local government which accounted for almost 73 percent of all job cutbacks.”

The article added that “professional and business services led all industries in job growth. “

The author of a December 2011 blog post on CalculatedRiskBlog.com on the IE’s unemployment rate noted that the unemployment rate during the California real estate bust of the early 1990s “only declined gradually over several years. That is probably what will happen this time too – I expect the areas that were most dependent on housing and construction during the bubble to see the slowest employment recovery over the next few years.”

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