Improvement in Rate of Job Loss Stalls Out

Recent months have seen a fairly steady improvement in the year-over-year rate of job losses for San Diego County. That annual rate of change was still firmly negative — just less so than it had been previously.

That trend pretty much stalled out last month. I say “pretty much” because December’s annual job decline rate of 3.3 percent was a bit smaller than November’s 3.4 percent. But this small improvement was much less significant than what we’d grown used to seeing in the preceeding months.

Month-to-month, the number of jobs actually declined between November and December, dropping by .1 percent. This contrasts with the positive monthly job growth experienced in October and November. It is also counter to the typical tendency for employment to increase in December. The average November-to-December increase in employment over the entire decade, for purposes of comparison, was plus .3 percent.

All in all, December was a weaker month for San Diego employment than the region had recently (if briefly) been enjoying.

— RICH TOSCANO