California’s economic recovery does not appear to be slowing down. The state added jobs at a solid rate again last month, and its unemployment rate continued to fall.
At first glance, the newly-released February jobs report doesn’t look that strong: California added about 30,000 new jobs – half of what it added in January.
But don’t get caught up in any one month’s numbers, says Chapman University economist Esmael Adibi. Look at the last two months together, which show the state added 16 percent of all new jobs across the nation.
“And our share, if we do our share, should be roughly about 13%,” Adibi says. “So still we’re outpacing the U.S. when it comes to number of jobs, relatively speaking, and the pace of job creation.”
Adibi says that job creation pace remains above three percent, as it has for the last two years.
California’s unemployment rate fell three-tenths of a point in February to 6.7 percent – down from eight percent the same month last year.
The four-county Sacramento region’s unemployment rate improved even more over the past 12 months; it dropped from 8.1 percent to 6.3 percent.
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