California’s August unemployment fifth worst in nation.
California’s unemployment rate was 11.4% in August, down from July’s 13.5%, according to government figures released Friday. The state has the nation’s fifthhighest unemployment rate, reflecting its early and prolonged shutdowns, as well as its reliance on travel and tourism, which remain moribund.
While the state added 101,900 payroll jobs in August, a total of 2.13 million people remained unemployed, according to the California Employment Development Department.
“The unemployment numbers are still completely staggering,” said Julia Pollak, labor economist at online jobs marketplace ZipRecruiter. While the country has recovered about half of the jobs lost during the pandemic, California has only recovered only about a third, she said.
Much of the boost in the unemployment rate was due to a decrease in the labor force, which was down by 117,000 for the month and “a whopping 807,000 since its peak in February,” as Sung Won Sohn, economics professor at Loyola Marymount University, said in a research note.
“The crisis has been a huge labor supply shock,” Pollak said. “Many people decided not to work now to avoid getting sick, or not to look for a job now while their industry is dead.” In addition, some parents are staying home with children, and workers may be using this time to return to school to learn new skills.
The state added 101,900 jobs in August — the majority, 66,100, in government. Labor Secretary Julie Su said many of those were U.S. census outreach workers — which are temporary positions.
“It is still grim,” said Mark Schniepp, director of the California Economic Forecast, a consulting firm. “Job creation is moving at a snail’s pace. There really isn’t a recovery now occurring in personal services, food services, hotels. That’s just sad.”
Professional and business services added 19,400 jobs. It is now up 90,000 from its bottom in April. “Technology remains a big help for the economy,” Sohn said. “Remote working, online shopping, social media and digital streaming have added jobs especially in the southern Bay Area including the San Jose metro area.”
Buoyed by tech, the Bay Area continues to post better unemployment numbers than the state. “Professional services are saving the principal Bay Area counties,” Schniepp said, but noted that there are countervailing forces. San Mateo County is affected by SFO’s decline, while San Francisco, Sonoma and Napa counties are hurt by tourism’s plunge.
Leisure and hospitality, the hardesthit industry group, remains in bad shape. While many sectors saw modest employment gains, leisure and hospitality actually lost 14,600 jobs in August — more than any other industry — bringing its total losses since a year earlier to 633,000, the state said.
About 8,100 of the 9,000 hotel workers in hotel union Unite Here Local 2, in San Francisco and San Mateo counties, remain furloughed, according to union spokesman Ted Waechter.
Maria Mata, 57, was furloughed in early March after eight years as a housekeeper at San Francisco’s W Hotel. It took her six weeks to get her unemployment benefits, and even then a couple of weeks were never paid.
The stress was immense — so much so that she thinks it triggered her newly diagnosed diabetes.
Mata supports her mother, Maria Valencia, 88; her son, Jose Rendon, 37; and granddaughter, Valeria Rendon, 7.
A U.S. citizen, Mata had spent seven years seeking to sponsor her son and granddaughter to come here. They arrived in February, and her son found a janitorial job — which was slated to start the first day of the economic shutdown.
“I felt so happy because finally the whole family could be together,” she said. “Now I feel so frustrated; the situation really blindsided us.”
She pays $800 to rent a bedroom for them all in a relative’s Concord apartment. (Her son sleeps in the living room.) After the extra $600aweek federal supplement to unemployment benefits ended in late July, she couldn’t pay this month’s rent, but her relative helped out. The family has started going to a food bank on Sundays for some groceries.
Unite Here Local 2 has used a fund run jointly with hotels to cover workers’ insurance, but it will be out of money Oct. 31. “My big worry is that my medical insurance will end,” she said. “I really don’t know what to do.”
Her son is seeking work but it’s been slow going. She said he got work cleaning houses but has not always been paid.
She’s looking for work, but “my hope is that I can go back to the (W) hotel and that it will have good norms around cleaning,” she said. “I’m afraid of COVID19 because I’m at higher risk because of my diabetes.” She hopes San Francisco will make permanent its temporary Healthy Buildings ordinance, which mandates multiple daily cleanings at hotels and offices. Supervisors are slated to vote on it Tuesday, but it faces opposition from the hotel industry, which sued to block it.
“My dream for a long time was to be able to afford my own place for me and my mom and son and granddaughter,” she said. “Now that dream feels impossible.”
“Many people decided not to work now to avoid getting sick, or not to look for a job now while their industry is dead.”
Julia Pollak, labor economist