Employment up for January

Last month I chastised the Sac Bee for sensationalizing the California jobs report for January. Their front-page (above the fold) weekday story had to do with the disappearance of 29,000 jobs for the month. The writer’s slant was: jobs would continue to disappear, unemployment would continue to rise, the sate was in a recession and our economy was on the verge of collapsing. It was all a little too much subjective hyperbole (should normally be located on the editorial page) for what should have been an objective reporting of the facts.

Jobs traditionally are off in January as they are traditionally up in December. Many seasonal temporary employees are hired in December and discharged in January. I further pointed out that the employment number would look better the next month and when they picked up, the favorable news would be reported some other place than a front page cover story.

I was not disappointed when the Bee in their Section D on Saturday (slowest readership day of the week) reported 25,600 jobs were created in February according to the Employment Development Department. The state’s unemployment rate fell to 5.7 percent. The Sacramento Region gained 3,000 jobs and unemployment also fell to 6.2 percent. Employment gains were reported in 8 of the 11 major economic sectors including construction. Our economy is certainly not as rosy as it was a year ago. We still have some tough times ahead in the financial, real estate and construction sectors. The economy passes through normal economic cycles and it is important to keep all things in proper perspective. If the loss of jobs in January merits front-page weekday headlines shouldn’t the addition of 25,000 jobs in the short month of February get the same attention.