California Unemployment Rate Crept Higher In June
SACRAMENTO (CBS/AP) - California's economy is staying soft into the summer, with the state unemployment rate for June rising slightly even as employers added workers.
The state added 28,800 payroll jobs in June, the state Employment Development Department said Friday.
But a survey of workers—which is used to calculate the jobless rate but is considered less reliable—showed 37,000 fewer people employed in California. That helped drive the jobless rate to 11.8 percent, second only to Nevada and up from 11.7 percent in May.
The California rate fell below 12 percent in April for the first time since 2009, but the state has seen weak job growth or job losses since then.
The U.S. unemployment rate climbed to 9.2 percent in June, adding a net of just 18,000 jobs nationwide.
However, high tech hiring seems to be on the rise in Silicon Valley. The Bay Area added 14,000 high tech jobs in the past year with more than a third of these jobs in the South Bay.
KCBS' Mike Colgan Reports:
"The South Bay seems to be leading the way out of the recession and into our recovery though it is taking a while, a little bit longer than everybody expects but we're going to get there" EDD Labor Analyst Janice Shriver
Just about every Bay Area County showed a .6 or .7 increase in the jobless rate, but Shriver said those figures are deceiving.
"It's not really alarming because usually between May and June of every year the labor force increases and the unemployment rate tends to increase as well.
(Copyright 2011 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
