Region’s unemployment rate flat at 3%, state hits all-time low
The unemployment rate in the tri-county region was 3% in July, the same as the month before, while California hit a new record low in July at 3.9%, according to data released Aug. 19 by the California Employment Development Department.
Ventura’s unemployment rate in July was 3.2%, unchanged from the previous month and well below the rate of 6.5% in July 2021.
Santa Barbara County had a 2.8% unemployment rate in July, the same as its rate in June and below the 5.7% rate of a year earlier.
In San Luis Obispo County, the July unemployment rate was 2.5%, down from 2.6% in June and from 5.5% in July 2021.
Unemployment rates in all three counties in the region remain slightly above their record low rates from May. But statewide, unemployment is as low as it’s been since the current system of record-keeping began in 1976. California has now regained 97.3% of the nonfarm jobs it lost at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, in March and April 2020.
In July, the biggest statewide job gains were in professional and business services and education and health services, both of which grew by 20,500 jobs from the month before. Every sector gained jobs except for financial services, which shrank by 1,900 jobs.
The reduction in statewide unemployment was driven by both an increase in the number of jobs and a decrease in the size of the labor force. In the tri-county region, the workforce grew slightly in Ventura County and shrank slightly in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties.
