City Hall: Long Beach unemployment at 9-year low

Long Beach’s unemployment rate has fallen to what City Hall officials reported is a nine-year low, dropping to 5.5 percent in March.

Data from the state Employment Development Department shows the city’s unemployment rate improved from 6.1 to 5.5 percent from February to March. A City Hall statement further reports that’s the same jobless rate as what was recorded in June 2007, a time before the great recession.

Long Beach’s payroll employment stood at 225,100 people in March, according to state data. Nearly 21 percent of those people worked in jobs associated with the trade and logistics industry, according to the city.

The health care and social assistance sector accounted about 17 percent of Long Beach’s employment. The tourism and hospitality sector, followed by retail claimed third and fourth place. Those fields, respectively, represented nearly 9 and about 8 percent of the city’s jobs.

The unemployment rate for all of Los Angeles County stood at 5 percent last month.

More to come.

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