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Jobless rate falls for Orange County, Calif.
(Orange County Register, The (CA) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Apr. 23--Unemployment fell in Orange County in March, as an increase in temporary jobs offset layoffs in the mortgage sector.
The county's unemployment rate was 3.4 percent in March, tied for the lowest in the state. That's down from 3.5 percent in February and unchanged from 3.4 percent in March 2006, the state's Employment Development Department said Friday.
In March, non-bank lenders in the county shed 600 jobs, a 2.8 percent drop, EDD said. Over the past 12 months, the number of jobs in the sector EDD calls "nondepository credit intermediation" has fallen to 20,900 from 23,200, a 9.9 percent drop.
Meanwhile, employment services added 900 jobs in March, a 1.5 percent increase. Over the past year, that sector is down 3.3 percent, to 61,000 jobs.
Local mortgage companies, including New Century Financial Corp. and Ameriquest Mortgage Co., laid off thousands of workers in March. The layoffs continued this month, most recently on Thursday, when GE's WMC Mortgage unit announced 52 job cuts in Costa Mesa.
The cooling housing market has taken the air out of a boom in housing-related industries, such as mortgages and construction, said Esmael Adibi, director of the A. Gary Anderson Center for Economic Research at Chapman University in Orange.
"That was driven by extremely high home sales activity, extremely high refinancing, and we knew it wasn't going to last that long," Adibi said.
"We enjoyed it -- but now we're paying a price." Overall, non-farm employment in Orange County increased by 5,800 jobs in March. Over the past 12 months, county employers added 13,300 nonfarm jobs, an increase of 0.9 percent, to reach 1,524,300. In 2006, the county had a 2 percent job-growth rate.
Statewide, California's unemployment rate was 4.8 percent in March, unchanged from February and down from 4.9 percent in March 2006. The number of nonfarm jobs in California increased by 1.7 percent in the past 12 months, to 15.24 million, EDD said.
Nationally, the unemployment rate was 4.4 percent in March, down from 4.5 percent in February and 4.7 percent in March 2006. The annual rate of job growth was 1.7 percent for the 12 months through March.
The unemployment rates for California and the nation are seasonally adjusted, while Orange County's is not.
To see more of The Orange County Register, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.ocregister.com.
Copyright (c) 2007, The Orange County Register, Calif.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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