California's unemployment rate dropped to a record low of 4.5% in October, the state said Friday, reflecting what experts say is one of the tightest job markets in years.
The jobless rate was down from 4.8% in September and the lowest since the government started tracking it in 1976, the state Employment Development Department said.
The California job picture mirrors a tightening of the labor market nationwide -- reflecting a solid economy in the fifth year of an expansion. The healthcare needs of an aging population, along with a continuing boom in tourism, are helping to fuel the state's employment growth.
The improving job market in California extends across a wide range of industry sectors and occupational categories, from low-skilled workers to professionals, experts said.
"Everybody is complaining that they can't find good skilled workers, and I've never seen so many help-wanted signs every place you go," said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.
One Monrovia retailer, who asked not to be named, has filled jobs by word of mouth for decades but said she resorted to placing her first online ad last month. Another employer looking for general help belied exasperation in a recent newspaper classified ad that summed up the labor market:
"I'M GOING CRAZY!!!! More work than staff. No experience necessary."
Not surprisingly, job seekers are getting picky.
"They are asking for higher salaries, and they are less flexible in their commutes," said Joan Van Donge, a vice president in Los Angeles for staffing firm Spherion Corp. "Two years ago we could get someone to drive from one side of L.A. to the other, to come in from the Inland Empire to Los Angeles. Now they are not as apt to do that."
Economists expect the unemployment rate to stay below 5% for some time, repeating the pattern of the late 1990s, when the tech boom led to labor shortages in high-skilled, computer-related jobs. This time, tightness is developing in such sectors as healthcare, skilled manufacturing and trucking, recruiters and economists said.
Outside the slowing housing market, things aren't so bad, they said. "If there weren't a housing slowdown now, you'd have a labor shortage," said John Husing, a Redlands-based economic development advisor.
The decline in construction jobs -- down 4,000 in October from a year earlier -- has been more than offset by growth in the state's service sector, including tourism, education and healthcare.
