California posted a solid job gain in August for the second straight month – but just as in July, the state’s unemployment rate didn’t budge.
The 44,200 new jobs in August are California's largest increase since April – and they’re nearly a third of the entire nation’s job growth last month.
But Chapman University economist Esmael Adibi says that wasn’t enough to drive the unemployment rate down from 7.4 percent.
“Look at all the college graduates that are entering the labor force. High School graduates. Discouraged workers are coming back to the labor force. So the job creation – although it’s respectable at 44,000, it’s not high enough to absorb all the new entry plus the unemployed,” Adibi says.
The California job market is growing at just over two percent. Last year, it grew at three percent.
Meanwhile, the Sacramento area struggled on the jobs front in August, losing 1,100 jobs. But the four-county region's unemployment rate has fallen 1.5 percent in the last year - the same drop as the state as a whole.
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