California jobless rate falls with help of temporary jobs

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A raft of temporary government jobs for the U.S. Census boosted California's economy in August as the state added 101,900 jobs as the unemployment rate fell below the high-water mark of the Great Recession for the first time since March.

But experts warned that other indicators — including new unemployment claims, feeble consumer spending and paltry job postings — still show the world's fifth-largest economy has stalled with no quick recovery in sight.

California lost more than 2.6 million jobs in March and April as the government ordered businesses to close and people to stay home to slow the spread of the coronavirus, which has killed more than 14,700 Californians.

California, home to nearly 40 million people and the world's fifth largest economy, has now regained nearly a third of those jobs lost, according to statistics released Friday by the Employment Development Department.

But the unemployment rate, now at 11.4%, fell in part because the labor force has declined by nearly 800,000 people since February as parents were forced to stay home with children and others decided to return to school to learn new skills in a challenging job market, said Sung Won Sohn, professor of finance and economics at Loyola Marymount University.

“The thing about this pandemic, we tend to talk about the averages and the jobless rate and how many jobs we have created,” he said. “It's kind of like saying the average depth of the Mississippi River is 3 feet deep. But if you try to walk across, you could drown. And many small businesses are drowning.”

California has paid more than $86 billion in unemployment benefits since March. The 13 million claims the state has processed over the past six months are more than triple the amount of claims filed in 2010, the worst full year of the Great...