County Unemployment Rate on the Rise Again : Labor: Jobless figure increases to 7.5% in May. It ends a three-month decline and signals a lingering economic slump.

Ventura County’s jobless rate headed up again in May, to 7.5% from 6.8% in April, ending a three-month decline in unemployment and signaling a continuing slump in the county’s economy, labor officials said Friday.

Despite a gain of 900 non-farm jobs during the month, the total number of jobs in the county remained 3,600 below the level of a year ago, according to a monthly survey of employers released by the state Employment Development Department.

“Ventura County’s economy appears to be limping along, or even stumbling,” said Bruce DeVine, head economist for the Southern California Assn. of Governments.

“We try to find optimistic signs in the data, but on a regionwide basis, we just don’t see any,” DeVine said.

During May, the number of county residents available for work swelled by 2,800 to 389,600, but the number who were actually employed dropped by 100, according to the employment department’s monthly survey of county households. As a result, the number of unemployed residents in Ventura County rose by nearly 3,000 to 29,300.

In the May survey of county employers, state labor officials found that 400 jobs each were added to the county’s construction and manufacturing sectors, 200 jobs each to the service and government sectors, and 100 jobs to the finance and real estate industries.

Over a 12-month period, though, only the depressed construction industry, with 500 more jobs, and the service sector, with 200 jobs, made significant gains, the report indicated.

During the same 12-month period, local and federal governments lost 1,600 positions, while the retail trades lost 1,100 jobs and manufacturing lost another 900.

The jobless picture also worsened statewide in May, rising to 8.7% from 8.4% in April. But that was still lower than the 9.8% peak in the state’s unemployment measured in February.

The national unemployment rate fell a tenth of a point in May to 6.7%.

Claims for initial and extended unemployment benefits also rose in May in Ventura County, matching the rise in unemployment. According to local labor officials, county residents filed 4,696 claims for initial jobless benefits in May, about 10% more than the month before, while another 2,175 residents asked that their benefit period be extended, up by 150 from April.

Patricia Baldoni, a supervisor in the Simi Valley employment office, said the east county office received fewer job orders last month from employers than in previous months.

“We’re not seeing an upswing in any particular industry, except for assembly work,” Baldoni said.

Several job seekers waiting in the Ventura employment office Friday said the large number of unemployed has made landing a job more difficult.

“With the closing of the big plants around here, work has gone way down,” said Chris Nettles, 37, who recently moved to the county from Ohio to care for his ailing mother. “The machine shops where I’ve applied that used to have 60 employees are barely staying open with skeleton crews.”

Inese Pitkanen of Ventura, a mother of three whose youngest daughter just graduated from high school, said she has been discouraged trying to re-enter the field of medical research.

“I’ve almost given up looking for work I’m trained for,” said Pitkanen, who holds a degree from UC Berkeley. “The employers seem to be looking for just the recently graduated.”

DeVine, the Assn. of Governments’ economist, said the loss of jobs in the public sector is likely to continue well into next year. “Government job losses are a delayed reaction to the realities the business sector faced earlier, with layoffs and cutbacks in production,” he said.

“Part of our problem in Southern California is the national economy doesn’t appear strong enough to help pull us out of our recession,” DeVine said.