January Unemployment Up Due to Seasonal Layoffs

Unemployment in Orange County in January bucked the trend of improvement shown since July 2011, according to numbers released Friday by the California Employment Development Department.

The county unemployment rate rose to 8 percent in January, up from a revised 7.8 percent in December, though well below the year-ago estimate of 9.2 percent.

However, the bump in job loss isn't necessarily a harbinger of a slide back into higher unemployment, said Ann Marshall, labor market consultant with the EDD.

"We expect unemployment to go up in January," she said. "In the last few months of the year, staffing is ramped up."

Come January, holiday hiring is counteracted by seasonal layoffs, she said.

"Retrail trade was 86 percent of that [job] loss [in Orange County]," she said. The leisure and hospitality sector also posted job losses, reflecting layoffs of holiday hires.

"In February, we'll see what bounces back," Marshall said.

Still, even in January, Orange County recorded the third-lowest unemployment rate in the state, behind only Marin and San Mateo. 

The county's numbers were better than the state's January unadjusted unemployment rate, which hit 11.3 percent. Nationwide, the rate estimate landed at 8.8 percent in January.

Information about employment in Orange County for February won't be available until the end of the month, but national estimates also released Friday for Febuary showed an increase in private-sector employment by 233,000 jobs.