INLAND EMPIRE ECONOMIC CENTER
Labor Market Report, September 2020 By Manfred W. Keil and Robert A. Kleinhenz of the Inland Empire Economic Center
The EDD released its labor market and industry employment data for September 2020. The Inland Empire (IE) experienced relatively strong household employment growth from August to September, with the number of employed increasing by 12,700, a figure that includes IE workers who are employed in the two-county area along with commuters into the Greater Los Angeles Area and San Diego County. September gains were somewhat slower than the 22,400 increase from July to August. The unemployment rate fell to 10.4%, a decline by 0.1 percentage points. It continues to run below the state unemployment rate, which is 10.8% (non-seasonally adjusted, 11.0% seasonally adjusted; seasonally adjusted data for the Inland Empire is not available). Also, the preliminary data for August was revised which contributes to the rather small decrease in the unemployment rate (originally the Inland Empire unemployment rate for August had been reported as 11.0%. Hence the previous month’s decline was even higher than the 2.4% drop we reported earlier).
More encouraging is that the labor force in the Inland Empire is now growing, and hence is reversing the trend we saw last month. Although the labor force is 0.8% lower than a year ago in year-to-date terms, it grew by 0.6% from August to September. Had labor force growth been weaker or negative, the unemployment rate for the Inland Empire would have fallen further.
The Inland Empire obviously still has way to go to before returning to unemployment rate levels prior to the coronavirus crisis. The unemployment rate then stood at 3.8%. Currently there are only nine California counties that have a higher unemployment rate than Riverside County and San Bernardino County. Lassen County only has a 6.3% unemployment rate, but is not really comparable in size to the two counties (the labor force there is less than 10,000 workers). More interestingly, out of the ten counties with a labor force of more than 500,000 workers, only Los Angeles County has a higher unemployment rate. Of these larger counties, Silicon Valley (Santa Clara County) has the lowest unemployment rate (7.0%) followed by San Francisco County (8.4%). Closer to home, both Orange County and San Diego County have 9.0% unemployment rates.
The employment growth represents an increase of 0.7% from a month ago. Since the low point of the coronavirus shutdown in April, San Bernardino County and Riverside County have added a remarkable 101,300 positions. Compared to February 2020, the peak of the previous economic expansion, we are back to the 91.6% level of employment, leading the other four Southern California MSAs (Orange County, LA County, Ventura County, San Diego County). Still, we are
168,000 jobs short of where we were back then, and almost 173,200 jobs below where we were a year ago.
INLAND EMPIRE ECONOMIC CENTER
Focusing now on employment within the Inland Empire, we will look at the establishment survey, which also excludes the self-employed. According to the establishment survey, the Inland Empire only added 3,200 jobs last month in seasonally adjusted terms, well behind the revised August gain of 14,100. The much larger gain from the household survey suggests that Inland Empire residents found more jobs outside the area than within; in addition, we should also consider an increase in the self-employed. When it comes to analyzing sectoral changes in employment, we need to pay special attention to the five sectors that represented ⅔ of the job losses from February 2020 to March. These were Leisure and Hospitality, Health and Education, Retail Sales, Professional and Business Services, and Other Services (including hairdressers and nail salons).
Looking at the more detailed, not-seasonally-adjusted number, the Inland Empire added 7,500 positions from August to September, with significant gains in two of the hardest hit sectors: Leisure and Hospitality (2,300) and Retail Trade (2,600). Of the other three hard hit sectors, only Other Services added a significant amount of jobs (900). In percentage terms, this is a strong 2.6% increase from the previous month. The numbers for Professional and Business Services, and Educational and Health Services were rather disappointing (increase of 100 positions each). Within Professional and Business Services, there was a modest gain in Professional Scientific and Technical Services employment, but this was offset by job losses in Building Services and Security Services. In all, 80% of the employment increase came from the five troubled sectors.
What else stands out for the Inland Empire? We had feared increased number of layoffs from the state and local government sector. However, the only employment decrease from the Government sector came from the federal level (-900) probably the result of the 2020 census winding down. Both State Government (+500) and Local Government (+3,100) added positions, with the Local Government increases almost exclusively coming from Local Government Education. Employment in another important Inland Empire sector, Logistics, was essentially flat with a marginal loss of 100 positions.
Similar to the national unemployment rate, which was released earlier in the month, California’s unemployment rate fell by roughly 0.5 percentage points to 10.8% (11% when we add seasonal factors). It continues to be substantially higher than the national rate, which currently is 7.7% (7.9% with seasonal factors added). A year ago, the unemployment rate for California stood at 3.6% (3.9% seasonally adjusted); the state has plenty of room to catch up compared to where we were prior to the coronavirus downturn. The Inland Empire has recovered 39% of shutdown losses and now stands at 92% of the February 2020 employment.
The decline in the state unemployment rate, while substantially smaller than last month, occurred with employment growing at 0.3 percentage points, while the labor force actually increased as well
(0.1 percentage points); the latter is a reversal from the month before when discouraged workers caused the labor force to shrink by 0.6 percentage points. California continues to have one of the INLAND EMPIRE ECONOMIC CENTER
highest unemployment rates among U.S. states. In the Western region, only Nevada and Hawaii are at a similar or higher level. States with the highest unemployment rates tend to have relatively more face-to-face jobs and rely more heavily on tourism and hospitality.
The state as a whole only added 47,300 jobs, which is substantially lower than the 288,300 jobs gained in August, or even the 142,400 positions added in July. On the positive side, the labor force is also growing and no longer shrinking.
About the Authors Keil is professor of economics, Robert Day School of Economics and Finance, Claremont McKenna College. He is the Associate Director of the Lowe Institute of Political Economy, and the Chief Economist of the Inland Empire Economic Partnership. Kleinhenz is CEO of Kleinhenz Economics, and Adjunct Professor of Economics, California State University Long Beach.