Recovery underway: employment rises in 2011

Employment rose by 0.5 percentage points from January 2012 to February 2012, to a total of 14,116,400 total people employed statewide. Jobs also increased in four of California’s five largest counties, although Riverside employment saw a slight drop. While these increases are not sufficient to reduce the drop that took place from December 2011 to January 2012, they are nonetheless indicative of a gradually improving jobs market.

One means of assessing the strength of that market is to review the one-year change in employment from January 2011 to January 2012. Employment levels in January are typically at their low point, or baseline, for the year. 157,600 jobs were gained in California between January 2011 and January 2012. A total of 14,019,500 people were employed statewide at the end of January, just over 1% above one year ago. While this one-year increase is sufficient to provide jobs for California’s increasing population (which also grew by about 1% in 2011), it is not nearly enough to make a dent in the vast number of jobs lost since the Great Recession of 2007.