Newsom: California created a fifth of the nation's jobs in February, more than any other state

California created more jobs than any other state in the nation last month, dropping its unemployment rate to 5.4%, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Friday.

Put another way, California created 138,100 jobs in February —  20.4%, or a fifth of the jobs created across the country last month.

"These latest numbers show that California is continuing to drive our nation's job growth," Newsom said in a statement. "We're doing it by promoting more pathways to opportunity and embracing the diversity, creativity, innovation, and determination that breeds success — building a California for all."

California's year-over-year job growth of 6.8% is far outpacing the nation's rate of 4.6%, and is averaging roughly 101,700 jobs gained every month in 12 of the past 13 months, state officials said.

The number of jobs created last month in California was 60,300 more than Texas, the next highest job creator, and 87,100 more than Florida, according to the state. With 1.3 million jobs created since the start of last year, Newsom says California has regained 87.2% of the nonfarm jobs that were lost during March and April of 2020 when the pandemic started.

Locally, the Los Angeles County's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is down to 6.4% in February, a big improvement over the unemployment rate of 10.7% at the same time last year. The total of nonfarm jobs in Los Angeles County increased by 61,100 jobs between January and February. The leisure and hospitality and educational/health services sectors showed the biggest improvement, adding 10,500 jobs each.