Los Angeles County - News from Aug. 1, 1994

Employment Reports Due: Are Los Angeles County and the rest of California recovering or sinking back into recession? A good clue will come Friday when government officials release the July employment reports for the county, state and nation. For most of this year, analysts have agreed that California is finally following the nation in pulling out of recession. Even though aerospace plants hit by U.S. defense cutbacks continue to fire workers to cut costs, analysts have pointed out that service industries are picking up some of the slack in the economy. But optimists were dealt a big disappointment by the June statistics, which showed job losses in both the county and state despite a strong increase nationally. The jobless rates in June were 11% for the county, 8.3% for the state and 6.0% for the nation. Even more troubling was the fact that the state’s loss of 12,100 jobs, coupled with a downward revision in the figures for April and May, left California with a meager gain of 6,200 jobs for the first half of 1994.