California's jobless rate declined to 6.1% in February, adding to the recent spate of upbeat news pointing to an economy on the mend.
February's drop from January's revised 6.4% rate marked the largest monthly decline in state unemployment since March 1994. Most regions of the state, including hard-hit Silicon Valley, saw unemployment ease.
Southern California continued to post some of the lowest unemployment figures in the state, led by Orange County, which saw its February rate drop to 3.6% from 3.9% in January, and San Diego, whose rate declined to 3.7% from 4.1%. Los Angeles County likewise saw its unemployment fall to 6.4% in February from a revised 6.6% the month before.
Still, California's employment picture remains decidedly mixed. The state also reported Friday that California employers cut their payrolls by 4,700 jobs last month, while January's revised job gains were only about half of the 30,200 jobs previously reported. Compared with February 2001, California has 51,200 fewer nonfarm payroll jobs than it did a year ago.
It might seem counterintuitive that unemployment could be falling if employers aren't hiring. But Michael Bernick, director of the state Employment Development Department, credits the drop in joblessness to a rise in self-employment, a phenomenon typically seen during periods of anemic job growth, as people who can't find work create their own.
A record number of Californians--16.5 million--were working in February, with an estimated 1.6million of them involved in activity that doesn't show up on someone else's payroll.
"These figures show the dynamism of the California economy,'' Bernick said. "It reflects the strong entrepreneurial ethos at work here."
Illustrating that spirit are people such as Sarah Ratliff. Laid off from her marketing job in January, the Fillmore, Calif., resident opted to launch her own event-planning business, Purple Works Party Planning.
"I didn't want to work for someone else and get laid off again," said Ratliff, 35. "Starting a business was a way to have some control."
The February decline in California's jobless figures mirrored the performance of the U.S. jobless rate. As reported last week, U.S. unemployment declined to 5.5% from 5.6% in January, its second straight monthly drop and the lowest rate since October.
