California adds jobs for fifth straight month

The unemployment rate slips a bit to 12.4% in May as employers add 28,300 jobs. Nevada surpasses Michigan as the state with the highest jobless rate, 14%.

By Alana Semuels, Los Angeles Times

June 18, 2010 | 8:51 a.m.

California employers added 28,300 jobs to payrolls in May, the fifth straight month of job growth, according to numbers released Friday morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The unemployment rate dipped slightly to 12.4%, from an adjusted 12.5% in April.

California had the third-highest unemployment rate in the nation in April. Neighboring state Nevada set a series high with an unemployment rate of 14% and replaced Michigan as the state with the highest unemployment rate. It's the first time in four years a state other than Michigan had the highest unemployment rate in the nation, the bureau said.

The unemployment rate in Los Angeles County remained essentially flat, at 12.3%. Employers added just 200 jobs to payrolls in May in the county.

The nation's unemployment rate in May was 9.7%.

Despite the job increases, economists say that many of the positions are likely temporary Census jobs that will disappear by the end of the summer. They say the private sector needs to add jobs to replace those Census jobs, but doubt that is happening yet.

"Given what happened to the U.S. jobs report, I'd be surprised if there is any kind of big increase in the private sector in California," said Jeff Michael, director of the Business Forecasting Center at the University of the Pacific.

California has lost more than 1 million jobs since the start of the recession. It lost 245,000 since May 2009.

La'Juanda Knight, 28, says there just aren't that many jobs out there. The North Hollywood resident, who has a bachelor of arts degree in communications, has had a few interviews for administrative assistant positions, but hasn't found anything yet. She said that many of the jobs she's seen advertised are part-time positions that pay as little as $8 an hour.

"That's never going to be enough to pay the bills," she said.

alana.semuels@latimes.com

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-0 ... 3878.story