Orange County unemployment broke the 10% mark in January as yearly layoffs hit their highest level since the peak of the recession in spring 2009.
The county saw unemployment rise to 10.1%, up from 9.1% in December, according to the state Employment Development Department.
From December to January, the county lost 14,600 jobs for a total of 1.3 million workers employed in nonfarm jobs.
The unemployment figure brings OC closer to national averages, which saw 10.6% unemployment in January and 9.7% in February. It is still better than the state’s 13.2% jobless rate in January.
Much of January’s higher unemployment was spurred by retailers that let go of workers brought on for the holidays.
On a yearly basis, layoffs returned to levels not seen since early 2009 after signs of improvement in the second half of last year.
The county lost 72,100 jobs in January from a year earlier, a 5% decline. That echoes the worst of the recession when 72,600 annual job losses were recorded in April 2009.
Manufacturing posted the largest yearly loss at 15,600 layoffs.
The latest numbers shouldn’t be taken as a signal that the county’s
job situation is backtracking, according to Morteza Rahmatian, chairman of the economics department at California State University, Fullerton.
He cautioned against putting too much emphasis on a single month of employment data.
“We obviously have a very high unemployment rate, led by construction and real estate. But it should be noted that we had a huge run-up three years ago in those industries that was much greater than other areas experienced,” Rahmatian said.
