LA is Southern California’s job creator — at least in March

Southern California’s job market in March was very much a split picture, with Los Angeles County being the jobs engine.

My trusty spreadsheet, filled with state job figures released Friday, April 21, found 7.97 million at work in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties in March. That’s up 18,300 employees in a month and up 157,800 in 12 months. Local hiring averaged 10,158 a month in 2018-19.

The overall hiring pace shows that many employers still need workers. This comes despite intense efforts by the Federal Reserve to cool an overheated economy that’s generating abnormally high inflation.

But the regional hiring upswing was by no means universal, geographically speaking.

L.A. County had 4.61 million workers in March after a 19,800 addition for the month and growing by 110,300 in a year. That hiring spree was nearly five times L.A.’s 4,221 monthly job growth averaged in 2018-19.

Elsewhere in the region, the hiring pace chilled.

Orange County dropped 700 workers to 1.69 million workers, but still grew by 41,700 in a year. Hiring averaged 1,588 monthly in 2018-19.

The Inland Empire slipped 800 jobs in a month to 1.66 million workers after growing by 5,800 in a year. This is a significant slowdown from hiring that averaged 4,350 a month in 2018-19.

Meanwhile, unemployment rates were stable across the region. And that creates some challenges.

The four-county jobless rate was 4.6% in March compared with 4.7% in the previous month, and 4.6% a year earlier. Joblessness averaged 4.2% in pre-pandemic 2018-19.

At the metropolitan area level, L.A. unemployment in March was 5% vs. 5.2% a month earlier. Orange County was 3.4%, same as February, and Inland Empire was 4.5%, also flat.

Across Southern California, the number of jobless workers fell. The 404,400 counted as officially out of work was down 12,700 in a month and down 800 in a year. The jobless count averaged 366,642 in pre-pandemic 2018-19, or 9% lower.

The essentially flat number of job seekers was little help for the size of the region’s workforce. The tally of the jobless plus those who are employed is a way to track the supply of workers.

So the workforce in March was 8.82 million — down 2,500 in a year and only up 5,238 vs. the 2018-19 average.

This sluggish workforce growth is a reason bosses struggle to fill open positions. It also subdues the hiring pace.

Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at jlansner@scng.com