California’s economic engine quieted in June as employers reduced their payrolls by 1,400, according to a report Friday by the state’s Employment Development Department. It was the second month this year that the state lost jobs.
The unemployment rate stayed flat at 4.7%, the lowest rate since November 2000.
The state added jobs at a rate of 1.6% over the last 12 months, matching the growth rate in the nation as a whole. California has tended to grow faster than the rest of the country since 2012, but as the job market tightened, businesses in the state have started taking on fewer new workers each month.
A net reduction of 1,400 jobs is slight compared with the state’s total employment of about 17 million non-agricultural workers. But it is another indication that 2017 could be a year of cooling for California’s typically bustling job market.
In the first half of 2016, the state piled on a total of nearly 160,000 new jobs. Through the first six months of this year, the state boosted payrolls by just 65,400.
“These numbers are problematic, I think this is a wakeup call for everybody,” said Chris Thornberg, co-founder of Los Angeles-based consulting firm Beacon Economics.
On the surface, California’s economy seems healthy enough; the jobless rate is rock bottom and wages are growing much faster here than in the rest of the country.
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