Riverside County jobless rate on the rise

Post-holiday cuts and rollbacks throughout the regional economy pushed the unemployment rate higher in Riverside County during the first month of the year, state officials said today.

The jobless rate in January, based on preliminary estimates, was 4.7 percent, compared to 4.3 percent in December, according to the California Employment Development Department.

Agency figures showed that the January rate was exactly one percentage point below the year-ago level, when countywide unemployment stood at 5.7 percent.

According to the EDD, officials are in the process of revising labor statistics in an annual exercise known as “benchmarking,” meaning some unemployment data are not available. The process, done in concert with the U.S. Department of Labor, is expected to last another month.

The combined unemployment rate for Riverside and San Bernardino counties in January was 4.5 percent, compared to 4.2 percent at the end of 2017, officials said.

Bi-county data indicated that only two sectors added jobs in January — financial services and government, which together expanded by an estimated 800 positions.

The decline in payrolls in all other recognized sectors totaled 24,500, figures showed. The heaviest losses were in retail trade, where 12,000 positions were cut in the aftermath of the holiday shopping blitz.

According to the EDD, the state’s non-seasonally adjusted jobless rate in January was 4.6 percent.