Los Angeles’ jobs picture darkened in January as employers slashed 77,000 jobs from their payrolls, much of that due to post-holiday seasonal layoffs at stores and restaurants, according to state figures released Friday.

However, the county is still doing better than last year at this time with a year-over-year gain of 6,000 jobs. During the depths of the recession, year-over-year job losses reached 200,000, or about 5 percent of all jobs.

The improvement was reflected in the county’s unemployment rate, which ticked down to 12.9 percent in January from a record 13 percent in December. The figure comes from a separate household survey conducted by the state Employment Development Department and also captures people who are informally employed.

Still, the seasonal layoffs shrank the county’s non-farm payroll by 2 percent to 3,786,800. Hurt most was the retail sector, which lost 14,000 jobs. Also affected was the leisure and hospitality industry, including restaurants, which shed 9,500 jobs.

Employment in professional and businesses services sharply dropped by 14,000 jobs. Declines of about 9,000 jobs were reported in private education, health services and information services, which includes the entertainment industry. The weakness in entertainment comes after months of steady increases.

The county’s two largest cities, Los Angeles and Long Beach, continued to post a much higher unemployment rate of 14.4 percent.

The state’s unemployment rate was 12.4 percent, down slightly from 12.5 percent in December. However, the state’s economy continues to be weaker than the nation’s. The nationwide unemployment rate was 9 percent for the month.