Beacon Employment Report

Welcome to the Beacon Employment Report, a unique analysis of California’s employment numbers and trends. Each month, we link our own econometric predictions to data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the California Employment Development Department to identify important changes in employment across industries and regions. The Beacon Employment Report is also one of the few analyses that uses seasonally adjusted numbers, which are critical to revealing accurate trends and insights within data. The analysis is a sample of the kind of research available from Beacon Economics.

Nonfarm employment in California capped off 2019 with modest gains, according to analysis released jointly by Beacon Economics and the UCR School of Business Center for Economic Forecasting and Development. The latest figures released by the California Employment Development Department reveal that employment in the state grew by 12,600 jobs in December. Since December 2018, California has added 310,300 jobs, which is equivalent to a 1.8% year-over-year increase, exceeding the nation’s growth rate of 1.4%.

“December marked the end of an impressive year for the state’s economy with California adding over 300,000 jobs,” said Taner Osman, a Research Manger at Beacon Economics and the UCR Center for Forecasting. “That rate of growth far exceeds the national growth rate and was quicker than the state’s growth rate in 2018 of 1.6%.”

California’s unemployment rate held steady at 3.9% in December, maintaining its record low. Over the year, the state’s unemployment rate has fallen from 4.1% to 3.9%. The state’s labor force also expanded for a fourth straight month, growing by 52,300 workers in the latest numbers. This reverses the contraction of the labor force that was seen in the first half of 2019. Since December 2018, California’s labor force has expanded by 36,900 workers, a relatively lackluster year-over-year increase of 0.2%. At the same time, the nation’s labor force grew by 0.9%.