The state’s Employment Development Department today came out with its annual revision of last year’s employment data, and the picture isn’t pretty for Orange County.
The revision shows that Orange County lost 5,900 jobs for all of 2007, for a drop of 0.4 percent, on an annual average basis. It is only the second annual job loss for Orange County in the past 14 years.
All of the 2007 job losses came in the second half of the year, wiping out what had been modest growth in the first half. By last December, the year-over-year decline in total nonfarm employment reached 28,200, a drop of 1.83 percent. That’s the biggest year-over-year percentage drop since January 2002 — and the largest number of jobs lost since December 1991.
All told, the revision shows Orange County had 12,358 fewer jobs in 2007 (and 1,167 fewer in 2006, which was revised, too) than previously estimated by EDD.
The losses are spread around most of the big employment sectors. Through January 2008, construction employment is down 2.9 percent over the past 12 months; financial activities is down 12 percent; professional and business services is down 1 percent; and manufacturing is down 1.9 percent. (For more details on real estate sector, CLICK HERE.)
On the bright side, retail trade is up 2 percent; leisure and hospitality is up 1.1 percent; and educational and health services is up 2.2 percent.
The number of unemployed people in Orange County was 71,600 in January, up from 60,700 a year earlier. The unemployment rate rose to 4.4 percent in January from 4.3 percent in December 2007 and from 3.7 percent in January 2007.
well, ponzi RE agents and brokers lost their jobs, thank goodness. Once you were high society, now get use to the low.
I think a lot of the bulls in this blog should read this post to get an idea of what is going to happen to the housing market in the next few months.
Shame on you OC Register! This is the problem with Today’s Media….. “OC Jobs Tumbled in 2007″ Oh my how much???? Should we be concerned was it 10%, 20% 30% ???? Quick run for the hills!
Oh it was 0.4%. Are you kidding me! Stop the unecessary hype to push your publication. Gee let’s see…. if I put a Scary Title on my article maybe people will read it. Well. it worked on me.
Get Serious… A loss of 0.4% (5900 jobs) what a joke!
I know many people going to job fairs, all from the Mortgage Industry which is probably connected to the large jump in 2nd half of year. People with 15, 20, 30+ yrs in the industry, looking for employment.
I’ve been told several times that former mortgage industry people are being discriminated against for jobs. I heard 2nd hand from a Apple One head hunter that even MONSTER.COM has adjusted their search engines to “kick out” resumes that have a reference to mortgage industry, “unless it’s in specific response to a Mortgage Industry position.” Someone should check into this. It’s bad for the state and county when these people can’t get back into the work force.
the trend matters more than the numbers. duh.