February’s employment figures from the California Employment Development Department, scheduled to be released today, have been delayed, the second month in a row the agency has been late in releasing data.

The EDD attributed the delay to changes by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in the methodology used to compute the jobs figures.

“The process was changed from December to January, and there doesn’t seem to be a clear path from how the Bureau collects and how the state collects,” said Bradley Kemp, labor market analyst for EDD.

Normally, the EDD releases state and county numbers on the second Friday of the month, a week after the U.S. numbers are announced.

The BLS recently began using population numbers from the 2000 U.S. Census rather than the 1990 Census in the two surveys used to compile employment figures. It is also modifying the way it conducts the payroll survey, so that it better reflects the increase of non-payroll and contract employment.

“There’s so many industries that work in new ways, they don’t show up in payrolls,” said Jack Kyser, senior economist at the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. “In the motion picture industry, it’s a given. Real estate brokers hang their licenses on the wall of real estate offices, but they’re independent and they’re employed, just like the truckers at the ports.”

Earlier this week, the EDD reported that the L.A. County unemployment rate in January was 6.3 percent, down from 6.4 percent in December.

EDD officials did not know when the February jobs numbers would be available.