Farm Labor Gains Help Lower County Jobless Rate to 6.7%

Workers returning to the fields after a wet January helped push the unemployment rate in February below 7%, a level reached only three times since 1991, a report released Friday shows.

More than 3,400 farming jobs were added in February after only 13,800 workers listed agriculture as their vocation in January. In all, 1,300 jobs were created in Ventura County from January to February, and the unemployment rate plummeted from 8.3% to 6.7% over the same period.

“It could have been the weather,” said Sonja Speer, a labor analyst with the Employment Development Department. “It could have been seasonal work, too.” Workers hired for the December holiday season were let go in January, she said.

Job gains in construction, service and wholesale trade added a combined 1,400 jobs to the county total during the same period, while job losses occurred in retail, banking and insurance, the report showed.

The rate in February, 1994, was 8.8%, more than two percentage points higher than this year’s figure. And the number of jobs increased by 1,300 in that time frame.

But economist Mark Schniepp warned that a more significant factor contributed to the declining unemployment rate: “More workers have left the labor force.”

Indeed, the number of farm workers who had jobs in February--17,200--was still 700 short of the nearly 18,000 employees who were employed in agriculture a year ago.

High-paying, high-technology jobs continued to leave the county. About 9,200 high-tech jobs existed in the county last month, down 100 from January.

This time last year, nearly 10,000 workers were employed in the aerospace industry and related businesses.

In February, 1994, the Employment Development Department counted 390,000 workers in the job pool. Last month, the department said 378,000 people were either working or looking for work in Ventura County.

“Still, the unemployment rate continues to be on the positive side,” Schniepp said. The unemployment rate has been lower only three times since the recession started in summer, 1991.

Schniepp, who heads UC Santa Barbara’s Economic Forecast Project, predicted the unemployment rate would hover around the same rate throughout the year as the economy continues to post modest gains.

“The economy was shaky a year or so ago,” he said, “but it strengthened. And now we aren’t seeing strengthening anymore, but it is maintaining the gains made.”

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Ventura County Jobless Rates Monthly figures, 1992-1995 Febuary, 1995: 6.7% Source: State Employment Development Department