Los Angeles County last year turned in its best jobs performance since early 2001, creating 50,000 payroll jobs and nearly three times that in total jobs, while knocking the unemployment rate down a full percentage point.

According to December figures released by the state Employment Development Department, there were 4,072,000 non-farm payroll jobs in Los Angeles County, up 49,500 or 1.2 percent from December 2004.

“After some very mediocre years, Los Angeles has finally turned the corner and we’re starting to see some significant job growth,” said Joseph Maggadino, director of the Office of Economic Research at California State University Long Beach.

The job growth was even greater for total civilian employment, which is based on a household survey and takes in the self-employed, contract workers and others not captured in employer payrolls. About 147,000 more people reported they were working in December 2005 compared to December 2004, a growth rate of 3.2 percent.

“The informal economy is really humming along,” said Chris Thornberg, senior economist with the Anderson Forecast at the University of California Los Angeles. “Part of this is that the hottest sectors of the economy, construction and entertainment, are areas that tend towards informal jobs.”

For example, most real estate agents are independent contractors who do not show up on any corporate payrolls.

All this helped push the unemployment rate down a full percentage point throughout 2005, despite the fact that nearly 100,000 more people entered the workforce. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate (taking into account normal seasonal fluctuations in hiring) stood at 5.5 percent in December, down from 6.5 percent in Dec. 2004.

The 2005 jobs figures could be revised upward slightly when the state releases its annual revision of the employment data, now set for March 3. This revision is expected to take into account more of the informal economy jobs that do not currently show up on employer payrolls.

The sector with the biggest gains in payroll jobs in 2005 was motion pictures and sound recording, which jumped 13,800 jobs thanks to a surge in cable television pilot productions early in the year. Other big gainers were leisure and hospitality (11,100 jobs) and construction (8,100 jobs).

Manufacturing remained one of the weakest areas, with a loss of 4,500 jobs. However, even here, there was good news. Manufacturing employment has actually leveled off in the last couple months as both durable and nondurable goods have begun to register slight gains, led by jumps in aerospace and high tech.