July was a good month for San Diego’s job market, according to the Employment Development Department’s local employment estimates.
You might not know it from looking at the raw numbers, as employment actually decreased between June and July. But that is a seasonal effect that takes place each year, largely as a result of school getting out.
The seasonally-adjusted series gives a better read on job market strength in this case. Once the typical seasonal job losses are accounted for, it turns out that July was an unusually strong month for employment growth:
Employment increased by 1.6 percent (20,100 jobs) a year-over-year basis. Virtually all of this growth took place within the non-bubble-related private sector industries (that would be everything but construction, finance, retail, and government).
The best big-picture view can be had from this graph of long-term seasonally adjusted employment, which shows that the local job recovery has picked up steam of late but still has a long way to go before that prior peak is reached.
Rich Toscano is a financial advisor with Pacific Capital Associates*. He can be contacted at rtoscano@pcasd.com.