Madison Aument: For 91.9 KVCR News, I’m Madison Aument. This is Economics IE.
Each month, IEGO, a nonprofit focused on economic growth in the Inland Empire, publishes the IE Labor Market Pulse. The newsletter analyzes monthly employment data to give readers insight into the regional labor market.
Today, I’m speaking with Matt Mena, IEGO’s executive director, about last month’s job numbers. Let’s just start by kind of doing a summary of what August job numbers looked like.
Matt Mena: For August, we had a 5.6% unemployment rate, which is down from 5.7. We’re a little above California’s average, which is at 5.5, and we’re far above the U.S. unemployment for the month of August, which is at 4.3. As long as we’re still within that safe realm, we’re cautiously optimistic for the regional economy.
We did add approximately 10,000 jobs in the month of August. A lot of those were in government, especially K-12 schooling. If you remember, last month we did have a decline there, so that’s a plus. It’s everything we were already forecasting.
We also had growth in the health care sector and social assistance, which we’ve seen over the past six months. Administration and support still on the government side, IT — we added 900 jobs. Food service, which was surprising for us, we added jobs there too, at around 600.
We also lost some jobs in some pretty big sectors too, which are construction, wholesale trade and retail.
Aument: Where the job losses were seen, like construction and some of the retail stuff, was that expected? Is that normal for this time of year?
Mena: It’s not expected in either of those. Typically from August to November is when we start seeing the uptick in training for the holiday season.
Construction is something that we should be looking at, because that means there is a lack of investment. The labor market is usually a lagging indicator of what else is going on in the economy. If we’re seeing a pause on construction hiring and those sorts of activities, we’re also probably seeing a pause in investment right now, or even some greater supply chain issues.
Aument: Could the decrease in construction jobs be part of that tariff issue of getting those materials?
Mena: That’s not actually what we’re seeing. What we’re seeing is an uptick at the Port of Long Beach and the Port of LA. We have seen some growth there. That’s probably connected to companies shipping out product to the United States because of the scare of tariffs and those sorts of activities.
We’ve seen that since the start of the Trump administration. All of that could be connected. It also could be connected to a lack of trust in how the U.S. is investing in our economy, because we don’t really have a clear view of what’s going to happen in the next five to six months, which usually we do.
Aument: And then where we’re seeing job growth, you said that was forecast, that was expected. Were there any surprises there?
Mena: We did see growth in logistics of around 400 jobs. We’ve kept a tracker there. It’s still upwards of 26,000 jobs that have been lost over the past six months, but we have seen more hires there. That also could be connected to the holiday season.
Our logistics and wholesale and transportation do mimic retail hiring and trading. The other piece that we saw connected to that is a decrease in occupancy in warehousing, which is at 88%.
Aument: And with August job numbers, what’s the most encouraging bit of data right now?
Mena: The most encouraging thing is that our economy and our job market are still growing. We’re still adding jobs. People haven’t given up. We still see 10,000 individuals going out and getting jobs. That’s always a benefit.
Aument: And the most concerning right now? I know a lot of people are stressed about the job market.
Mena: Oftentimes in these conversations we’re just talking about jobs. But connected to jobs are the wages. What we’re seeing is our average hourly rate is actually less than the national average. We have $30.90 as the hourly wage for the Inland Empire. That’s lower than the national average.
Living in California and living in the Inland Empire is still more expensive than much of the country. That’s something to keep in mind. As we’re creating jobs, it’s the quality of jobs that we should be after, not just the number of jobs that we’re adding into the economy.
Aument: You can find this segment and a link to the IE Labor Market Pulse at kvcrnews.org. This segment is funded by the Nowak family. For KVCR News, I’m Madison Aument.
