California’s unemployment rate, 5.2% of its labor force in July, is no longer the nation’s highest after months of having that dubious distinction.
While California’s July rate was unchanged from June, Nevada’s creeped ahead — or behind — with a 5.4% rate, so California is now tied with Illinois for second place among the states.
The jobless rate translates into slightly over 1 million of California’s 19.4 million-person labor force being unemployed. The labor force is defined as adults of working age who either hold jobs or are seeking work.
As high as it may be in relative terms, California’s unemployment rate is merely one piece of an economic puzzle. Other pieces include a population that has been declining due largely to out-migration to other states, a chronic shortage of housing that pushes housing costs upward and pushes people out of the state, increased numbers of workers who have retired and a decline in the labor force due to all of those factors and more.
Overall, California’ economic recovery from the brief but sharp recession during the COVID-19 pandemic has been slower than the nation as a whole, or as a new analysis from Beacon Economics puts it, “There is little doubt that California is not doing as well as it has in the past. The only substantial argument is over why the state is faring so poorly, and the depth of the rot.