Jobs are slowly starting to reappear, according to some Santa Barbara County officials.
The Workforce Investment Board announced earlier this month that the county’s unemployment rate dropped to 8.7 percent in October, down three tenths of a percent from last month. The county is faring better than the state and the nation, which reported joblessness rates of 12 and 9 percent, respectively.
According to the California Employment Development Department, Santa Barbara County has the third lowest unemployment rate among California’s 58 counties. Marin County reported the lowest rate at 8 percent, and San Mateo County came in second lowest at 8.5 percent. Imperial County suffers the state’s highest average—and ranks one of the highest in the nation—at 29.3 percent unemployment.
“We’re glad to see the county’s unemployment rates drop, especially as we enter the holiday season,” said Karen Dwyer, a small business owner and member of the Workforce Investment Board’s Board of Directors. “We need to remember, however, that we’re talking about real people, not just numbers, and we have more than 19,000 people unemployed in our county who want to work, and we still have a long way to go to make sure that everybody who can is back to work.”
The October 2010 report shows Santa Barbara County currently has about 19,500 unemployed workers out of a total local labor force of about 224,000, meaning about 204,500 were employed last month.
However, Northern Santa Barbara County continues to suffer the county’s highest unemployment rates, with Lompoc at 15.3 percent (down from September’s 15.8 percent); Guadalupe at 14.8 percent (also down from 15.3 percent in September); and Santa Maria at 13.5 percent (down from 14 percent in September).
Vandenberg Air Force Base reported an October rate of 13.8 percent (14.3 percent in September); Los Alamos, 12.5 percent (13.0 percent in September); Mission Hills, 10.4 percent (10.8 percent in September); and Orcutt dropped to 9.7 percent (down from 10.1 percent in September).
The cities with the lowest rates for October were Solvang at 3.3 percent (3.4 percent in September); Goleta at 4.3 percent (4.5 percent in September); and Carpinteria at 4.4 percent (4.5 percent in September). Santa Barbara recorded a rate of 6.1 percent (6.4 percent in September), and Buellton reported a rate of 6.3 percent for October (6.6 percent in September).
This article appears in Nov 25 – Dec 2, 2010.