County posts 27.8 percent unemployment in May

EL CENTRO – If there’s a positive spin on Imperial County’s 27.8 percent unemployment rate for May, it’s that the percentage wasn’t the worst in the state.

That distinction belongs to Mono County, which in the state Employment Development Department preliminary estimates released Friday posted a 28.9 percent rate, albeit with a much smaller (6,300 vs. 71,700) labor force than Imperial County.

May’s estimated unemployment for Imperial County was also a slight improvement on the 28.1 percent revised tally for April, which marked the first full calendar month of the COVID-19 pandemic. The May estimate was also slightly better than the same month in 2010 and 2011, when the county was still reeling from the effects of the Great Recession and local May unemployment was at 28.2 percent and 28.1 percent, respectively.

So that’s the good news. The bad news is that the county’s 27.8 percent unadjusted employment rate for May 2020 compares against a state rate of 16.3 percent and a national rate of 13.3 percent. It also looks grim against its own rate of 16.5 percent for May 2019.

The vast majority (5,400) of the 7,600 jobs lost in the county last month compared to the same period in 2019 were non-farm jobs. Trade, transportation and utilities were down 900 jobs; educational and health services, 1,400; leisure and hospitality, 1,700; government, 1,400, and “other services,” 200 jobs.

Farming was down 2,200 jobs compared to a year ago, dropping from 12,200 to 10,000.

Statewide, EDD now says April’s unemployment rate was 16.4 percent, not 15.5 percent. The revised number represents nearly 170,000 more people out of work in April than initially reported.

May’s slight uptick was due to the state adding 141,600 payroll jobs.

But it was a blip compared to the 2.4 million payroll jobs the state lost in April, more than all the jobs shed in California during the Great Recession a decade ago.

“The economy clearly has hit the bottom, and most likely that has occurred in May,” said Sung Won Sohn, a professor of finance and economics at Loyola Marymount University. “But if we were to have a major second (coronavirus) wave, even bigger than the first wave, all bets are off. Then we are looking at a pretty dismal scenario.”

Nationally, 38 states saw their unemployment rates improve last month, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, as governors and local officials began loosening their stay-at-home orders and businesses started reopening.

In California, most businesses are now open, but with restrictions that in many cases limit the number of customers they can serve. Most California counties now allow restaurants, retail stores, movie theaters, hotels, gyms and other businesses to open.

But with new virus cases and hospitalizations rising, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday ordered people to wear masks in most indoor settings and outdoors when physical distancing isn’t possible.

“I hope that people take it very seriously, because we’re still in the first wave,” said Newsom, who wore a mask Friday while visiting a Sacramento restaurant that was preparing meals for older adults who can’t shop and cook for themselves during the pandemic. “I think some of us are developing amnesia, that somehow this is behind us and we’re fine and it’s OK.”

Associated Press contributed to this report.