Stanislaus unemployment remains steady after another ‘quiet’ month of recovery
Stanislaus County’s unemployment rate remained steady in October, continuing a trend of recovery from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The jobless rate in the Stanislaus County was 6.9% in October, unchanged from September’s numbers, according to data from the state’s Employment Development Department. Local data is not seasonally adjusted.
Statewide, unemployment dropped to 7.3%, down from 7.5% in September. The national joblessness rate in October was 4.6%, down from 4.8% in September, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In October 2020, Stanislaus reported 10.3% unemployment, compared with 10.6% in California and 6.9% nationally.
Jeff Michael, the director of public policy programs at Pacific McGeorge School of Law, said Stanislaus’ stagnancy comes after a number of “very quiet” months for the region. Whereas other parts of the state have been able to make employment gains in industries like leisure and hospitality, those sectors don’t make up as much of the local economy.
Consequently, recovery in Stanislaus has looked different than in other areas that draw more tourist activity.
In October, the manufacturing industry saw a decline of 1,200 jobs locally, with modest gains statewide. Michael attributes this loss to seasonal employment, specifically in areas like food processing, which fluctuates depending on the season.
The region saw modest gains in the construction sector, as well as transportation and trade.
State-wide, the business and professional services, leisure and hospitality, as well as transportation sectors saw the biggest gains, contributing to the addition of 96,800 non-farm jobs. EDD data shows the state has regained 1,828,500, or 67.4%, of the jobs lost in March and April 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Looking forward, Michael said the holiday season is sure to inject money into the economy, even if consumers won’t be flocking to physical stores at pre-pandemic rates. Instead, he expects online retail to continue to boom.
“Certainly, there’s going to be a lot more online shopping,” he said. “You could see more of the seasonal ramp up of employment (for positions like) couriers and warehouse (workers), and less on the retail floor.”
Beyond the holidays, Michael is looking to 2022 for permanent economic recovery. While he and other economists foresaw more significant recovery in late 2021, the last few months have proven slower than expected.
Still, Michael said, more sustained improvements are on the horizon. And when the economy recovers, he said researchers will be able to evaluate the changes left in the wake of the pandemic.
Remote and hybrid workplaces are likely to become a permanent fixture, Michael said, even as employers continue to figure out what exactly that means for their workers, and workers themselves are looking at their priorities in a new way.
“The whole experience has made a lot of workers reevaluate what they want to do, and how they want to do it,” Michael said. “Where they want to do it. That’s obviously an ongoing process that we’re going to have to watch but definitely, not everything’s will go back to where it was.”
This story was produced with financial support from the Stanislaus Community Foundation, along with the GroundTruth Project’s Report for America initiative. The Modesto Bee maintains full editorial control of this work.
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