California’s April unemployment rate was unchanged from March at 12.6 percent. This was the result of roughly equivalent increases in civilian labor force and employment from March to April.

California’s April jobs grew at 1.6 percent, annualized, from March. However, if we remove Agriculture and Government, this growth rate falls to zero percent. California’s April year-on-year growth improved from March, but still declined by 2.3 percent.

The reason for the unchanged April private non-farm job level is that gains in Leisure and Hospitality, Personal/Repair/Maintenance Services, and Professional/Technical Services were offset by declines in Construction, Manufacturing, Trade, Transport/Warehousing/Utilities, and Education/Healthcare.

The driver behind the Government increase was Federal, obviously due largely to the U.S. Census effort. The Census effort may be partly responsible for the increase in Labor Force we have seen across the county in recent months.

We are unfortunately still waiting for a California Employment Situation that we can get excited about.