L.A. County’s unemployment rate dropped a notch to 5.5% in January despite county employers slashing more than 58,000 mostly seasonal jobs from their payrolls during the month, according to state figures released on April 3.

In a related development, the state Employment Development Department came out with its annual revision of the payroll jobs data with a new total for Los Angeles County that was about 11,000 fewer jobs than originally estimated.

On the unemployment front, the 5.5% rate for January dipped from 5.6% for December and 5.7% in November. In January of last year, the unemployment rate was 5.8%.

The statewide average unemployment rate for January was 5.4%, higher than the national unemployment rate at 4.3%.

The agency also provided unemployment rates for the 88 cities in Los Angeles County, which are not seasonally adjusted like the countywide rate. The seasonally unadjusted rates in January for the two largest cities – Los Angeles and Long Beach – were 5.6% and 5.2%, respectively.

Among other cities with labor forces exceeding 10,000 people, Lomita recorded the lowest unemployment rate in January at 3.4%, while Calabasas posted the highest rate at 8.0%.

Seasonal plunge in payroll jobs

On the payroll jobs front, the county recorded 4,581,200 jobs in January, a drop of 58,500 from December. The sharp decline reflected several seasonal factors. Temporary holiday hires in the retail sector fell by 13,800 jobs and temporary employment agencies saw a decline of 7,300 jobs. The arts/entertainment/recreation sector and motion picture/sound recording industry both saw declines of about 5,500 jobs.

These month-to-month drops were generally in line with the historical average for January, though smaller than last year’s loss of 99,000 jobs, which was exacerbated by the devastating wildfires that month.

The health care/social assistance sector was the only one to post a significant gain of about 3,000 jobs.

For the 12-month period ending in January, employer payrolls in the county increased by 34,200 for a modest gain of 0.8%.

As usual, the health care/social assistance sector was the single biggest gainer for the 12 months ending in January, posting an increase of 34,200 jobs. Accommodation/food services saw a jump of 8,500 jobs, followed by 5,500 for professional/business services.

On the negative side, state government payrolls posted the biggest drop, shrinking by 7,500 jobs. Manufacturing was next, falling by 6,100 jobs. That continues a decades-long trend for manufacturing, which has shed 525,000 jobs to just below 300,000, a plunge of 63%.

Small data revisions – with one notable exception

Each year, the Employment Development Department and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics revise the payroll jobs data as they reconcile their sample models with more recent tax data submitted by employers. Two years ago, the data revisions were huge on the downside. They showed there were actually 110,000 fewer jobs in December 2023 than previously recorded.

Last year, the revision indicated a slight gain of 1,900 jobs.

This year’s revision showed December’s countywide payroll jobs count down by 11,300 from what EDD originally reported. That represents a 0.2% drop in the overall jobs total, which is modest when compared with the 2% decline in 2023.

When looking at individual sectors, most of the revisions for December were within 2% of the original figures released two months ago. But there were two exceptions.

On the upside, professional/business services, which at 668,700 jobs adjusted for a previous 2.8% undercount.

On the downside was motion picture/sound recording, where the revised December number was 101,600, 8.5% less than the originally posted number two months ago. However, this drop puts payroll employment in the sector more in line with anecdotal reports in various media of “devastating” job losses in the industry over the last three years or so.