The economic slowdown hit L.A. County hard in May as the unemployment rate shot up to 6.7 percent from 5.9 percent in April, according to state figures released Friday. The dramatic increase in unemployment was spurred by tens of thousands of additional people reporting they were out of work.

Yet another closely watched indicator of local job performance non-farm job payrolls actually showed a slight increase of 3,200 jobs, or 0.1 percent, according to the figures from the state Employment Development Department.

Job gains in the entertainment sector, the tourism industry and retail slightly outpaced continuing losses in construction, finance, manufacturing and seasonal losses in education.

Statewide, there was a similar discrepancy, as the state unemployment rate leaped to 6.8 percent in May from 6.2 percent in April while the state lost a mere 10,900 non-farm payroll jobs, or less than 0.1 percent.

Much of this discrepancy can be traced to an apparent surge in layoffs of people not on company payrolls, including independent contractors and people working in the cash economy.

The state uses two different surveys to track the ebb and flow of jobs in the county. The unemployment rate is derived from a survey of households, while the non-farm jobs data are culled from company payroll filings.

“Some previously self-employed workers, for example in construction or real estate, may have lost their jobs. This would count as an increase in unemployment but would not show up as job losses in the wage and salary job estimates that exclude self-employed workers,” said Stephen Levy, director of the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto.

Indeed, the household data survey show that 58,000 fewer people were employed in Los Angeles County in May than in April, while the ranks of the officially unemployed swelled by nearly 40,000. The difference points to nearly 20,000 people who have temporarily given up looking for work.

While construction workers who were working entirely off the books account for a significant portion of this increase in unemployment, high end workers have been hit as well.

“We’re seeing contractors with specialized skills losing their jobs. Companies are taking the work back in house and are asking existing employees to take on this additional work,” said Christa Shapiro, regional vice president for Adecco Staffing, a Swiss temporary staffing company. “We really seeing this happen with technical trade positions.”

A similar trend has been occurring in the entertainment industry as studios used the writer’s strike and the threat of an actor’s strike to cut back on projects, throwing a lot of independent contractors on the street.

This is also happening in the broader economy, according to Jack Kyser, chief economist with the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.

“We’re seeing extreme caution from local businesses. Our regional managers are telling us that companies just aren’t starting any big projects right now and they are not adding jobs.”