Jobless rate falls across California, in Valley

California’s jobless rate fell to 6.5 percent in March, the lowest it’s been in nearly seven years, the California Employment Development Department reported Friday.

The percentage of workers without jobs also fell in the Northern San Joaquin Valley. The EDD reported preliminary unemployment rates of 10.4 percent in Stanislaus, 12.9 in Merced and 9.5 percent in San Joaquin counties. These are the lowest March jobless rates for the three counties since 2007.

California added 39,800 jobs during March, for a gain of nearly 1.9 million jobs since the recovery began in 2010, according to the agency. The last time the unemployment rate was this low was in May 2008. Stanislaus added 4,100 jobs, Merced added 3,600 and San Joaquin added 7,200.

The national unemployment rate remained unchanged at 5.5 percent.

California saw a drop of two-tenths of a percentage point in its unemployment rate from February as a result of payroll gains. It was the third consecutive drop since the start of the year.

A survey of California businesses found the state had 15.9 million non-farm jobs in March. It marks a 3.1 percent increase, or a gain of roughly 482,000 jobs, since March of last year.

According to the agency, seven categories added jobs over the month: construction; manufacturing; trade, transportation and utilities; professional and business services; educational and health services; other services; and government.

Professional and business services posted the largest increase of 16,900 jobs.

The big gains in the Northern San Joaquin Valley were 2,500 manufacturing jobs in Merced County; 1,600 trade, transportation and utilities jobs and 1,200 manufacturing jobs in San Joaquin County; and 1,900 educational and health services jobs, 1,300 professional and business services jobs and 1,200 trade, transportation and utilities jobs in Stanislaus County.

The overall number of people unemployed was down in March and stands at 1.2 million. However, that doesn’t include the number of Californians who have stopped looking for work, or people working part time who would rather be working full time.

The Public Policy Institute of California, a nonpartisan think tank, issued an analysis in December saying that when those groups are factored in, the state’s unemployment rate is likely 15.4 percent.

The state reported that there were 464,530 people receiving unemployment benefits during March, an uptick from 426,874 in February but lower than 510,919 during March of last year.

This story was originally published April 17, 2015 at 4:19 PM with the headline "Jobless rate falls across California, in Valley."