California's unemployment rate is now the highest in the country. The state's unemployment rate was 5.3% in February. That's higher than Nevada's 5.2% rate. The national unemployment rate is 3.9%. The increase comes after new data revealed job growth in California was much slower last year than previously thought.
FILE - Work is done on the roof of a building under construction in Sacramento, Calif., on March 3, 2022. New numbers released Friday, March 22, 2024, show California has the highest unemployment rate in the country. Job losses in February were led by a drop in the construction industry. FILE - A construction crew works on a structure next to the City College of San Francisco campus on Sept. 11, 2023 in San Francisco.
But a recent analysis of unemployment data by the federal government revealed that job growth slowed significantly last year. The federal government releases job numbers each month that state officials use to measure the health of the economy. Each year, the federal government analyzes these numbers to see if they match payroll records. Normally, the revisions are small and don’t impact the overall view of the economy.
Last year, the preliminary numbers showed California added 9,900 jobs in July. But the corrected numbers show the state actually lost about 41,400 jobs that month. “The tech sector, especially major firms, over-hired in the first post-pandemic year, and has been shedding jobs since,” said Michael Bernick, a former director of the California Employment Development Department who is now an attorney with the Duane Morris law firm. “The Bay Area is the new epicenter of Artificial Intelligence start-ups. But these start-ups so far are creating a small number of jobs.
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