News

The U.S. has its own tradition of apprenticeship going back many years. But like most kinds of vocational education, it fell out of fashion in recent decades—a victim of our obsession with college and concern to avoid anything that resembles tracking. Today in America, fewer than 5 percent of young people train as apprentices, the overwhelming majority in the construction trades. In Germany, the number is closer to 60 percent—in fields as diverse as advanced manufacturing, IT, banking, and hospitality. And in Europe, what’s often called “dual training” is a highly respected career path.

After about two decades of a typical curriculum in its middle school and high school, Boys Town is overhauling its class offerings to refocus on Father Flanagan’s original vision of vocational classes, which are increasingly in vogue. Now, they have a fancy new name: career-readiness courses.

California’s unemployment rate decreased to 7.2 percent in November, and nonfarm payroll jobs increased by 90,100 during the month for a total gain of 1,529,500 jobs since the recovery began in February 2010, according to data released today by the California Employment Development Department (EDD) from two separate surveys.

California added 90,100 payroll jobs in November as the state’s unemployment rate dipped slightly, to 7.2 percent.

The state’s jobless rate currently sits at 7.3% — the nation’s fifth highest, and well above the overall U.S. rate of 5.8%. But California’s job creation has outpaced the national average since 2012, a trend that will continue, according to the quarterly UCLA Anderson Forecast released Wednesday.

Nonfarm payrolls rose a seasonally adjusted 321,000 in November, the strongest month of hiring since January 2012, the Labor Department said Friday. Hiring was broad across industries, led by gains in the professional and business-services sector.

California’s unemployment rate for October was 7.3 percent, which remain unchanged from the previous month even as the state increased payroll jobs.

U.S. payrolls grew modestly in October but the unemployment rate fell and wages edged up, signs the labor market is strengthening.

Nonfarm payrolls grew a seasonally adjusted 214,000 last month, the Labor Department said Friday. Since the start of the year, employers have added more than 220,000 workers on average each month, a pace last consistently maintained nearly a decade ago.

The unemployment rate, obtained from a separate survey of households, fell to 5.8% last month. That’s the lowest level since 2008

California’s unemployment rate dropped to 7.3% in September — the lowest in more than six years — though the total number of jobs declined by 9,800 last month, according to state data.

Los Angeles County will finally regain the number of jobs it lost during the Great Recession next year, with Orange County and the Inland Empire expected to follow soon after, a new study projects..

U.S. job growth rebounded in September and the jobless rate slipped below 6%, suggesting the labor market is improving faster than previously thought and raising the prospect of an earlier-than-anticipated move by the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates.

Nonfarm payrolls grew a seasonally adjusted 248,000 last month, the fastest pace since June, the Labor Department said Friday. Revisions showed stronger job growth in prior months than previously estimated. The economy added 180,000 jobs in August instead of the initially reported 142,000. It created 243,000 in July, up from an earlier estimate of 212,000.

. . . Despite the latest improvement, the report indicated slack remains in the labor market and pointed to persistent problems facing the world’s largest economy. The share of Americans in the labor force fell again last month, hitting the lowest level in more than three decades. The labor-force participation rate fell to 62.7% from August’s 62.8%. Before the recession, the rate stood at 66%.

California’s unemployment rate was unchanged for a third month, holding at 7.4 percent in August, officials said Friday.

U.S. job growth slowed to its lowest level of the year in August, a stumble for labor markets that had delivered a string of steady gains over the prior six months despite uneven economic growth. . . Revisions to earlier estimates for June and July showed that the economy added 28,000 fewer jobs than initially reported.

The number of people making new jobless claims across the country dropped slightly by 1,000 to 298,000 from the previous week’s revised number, according to a weekly report from the U.S. Department of Labor. California scored the largest drop in new claims.

California added more than 27,000 jobs in July, but the state unemployment rate remained flat at 7.4% as the size of the labor force shrank slightly from last month’s estimates..