Each month the California Employment Development Department (EDD) releases employment data for the prior month. Each year, the Labor Market Information Division (LMID), in cooperation with the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), revises historical industry employment, labor force, and hours and earnings estimates. The revision process, also called “benchmarking,” produces updates to the data sets used to generate the monthly estimates.
This edition of San Diego’s Economic Pulse covers 2019 benchmarking updates and data from January 2020. Check out EDC’s research bureau for more data and stats about San Diego’s economy.
Highlights include:
- The region’s unemployment rate was 3.3 percent in January 2020, up from a revised 2.8 percent in December 2019, and below the year-ago estimate of 3.8 percent
- The region’s unemployment rate remains lower than both the state and national unemployment rates of 4.3 percent and 4.0 percent, respectively
- Between December 2019 and January 2020, total nonfarm employment decreased from 1,525,200 to 1,501,700, losing 23,500 jobs
- Between January 2019 and January 2020, total nonfarm employment increased from 1,482,000 to 1,501,700, adding 19,700 jobs
- Professional and business services led the year-over-year gain, adding 8,600 jobs
- Benchmark revisions show that the region experienced slower employment growth in 2019, ending the year with 15,500 fewer jobs than originally estimated
