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<h1><span style='font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>Fresno County jobless rate
drops in July <o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<h2 style='margin-left:.5in' id="story_subheadline"><span style='font-family:
"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:black'>Seasonal growth in farm work</span><span
style='font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>, food industry cited.<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<p><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>Seasonal
job growth in farm employment and food manufacturing fueled a slight drop in
Fresno County's unemployment rate last month, despite an overall decline in the
number of wage-paying jobs.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>The
county's jobless rate in July was 15%, down from 15.3% in June, according to
figures made public Friday by the state Employment Development Department.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>Elsewhere
in the Valley, the unemployment rate was down in Kings County and unchanged in
Madera County but rose in both Tulare and Merced counties. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";
color:black'>The summer harvest season accounted for about 3,000 additional
jobs in Fresno County, state labor market analyst Steven Gutierrez said.
Another 800 jobs were added in manufacturing, Gutierrez said, all in food
manufacturing.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>But
those gains were outpaced by job losses in other sectors, especially in
government employment -- also due to seasonal patterns, Gutierrez said.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>Local
governments -- cities, counties and other local agencies -- lost about 3,600
jobs, while state and federal government agencies shed a combined 1,200 jobs in
July.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>Overall,
EDD analysts estimated about 348,000 jobs among all industries in Fresno County
in July, down 1,600 from June's estimate. The job-count figures are based on
surveys of employers.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>One
surprise was the loss of an estimated 5,200 farm jobs in Tulare County in what
is typically the peak of harvest season throughout the San Joaquin Valley. But
while the county has lost farm jobs between June and July in all but one of the
last nine years, this year's drop -- from 47,600 jobs in June to 42,400 in July
-- is the largest month-to-month decline in that period.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>"That
surprised me too, because I went back and looked at the numbers," said
Sheila Urdesich, an EDD labor market analyst.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";
color:red'>"But the good news is, there are still 1,800 more farm jobs
than a year ago," Urdesich said.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>Across
the five-county region, about 136,600 people in the labor force are out of
work. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>That's
about 1,300 fewer than last month, but nearly 47,000 more than were unemployed
a year ago. Jobless rates in each of the five counties are about 5 percentage
points above ahead of where they were in July 2008.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>An
idiosyncracy of the state's figures is there are two sets of numbers: one
estimating the number of wage- and salary-paying jobs, the second calculating
the number of people employed. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>The two
figures don't necessarily match because some people may hold more than one job.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>The
estimates of paying jobs don't count the self-employed, unpaid family help,
household domestic workers or workers on strike, but those people do count as
employed when calculating the overall unemployment rate.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>People
who have left the labor force for whatever reason -- discouraged workers who
have stopped looking for jobs, retirees or students who returned to school --
are not part of the unemployment calculations.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>California's
statewide unemployment rate was up for the month, climbing to 11.9%, compared
to 11.6% in June. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>Nationally,
the unemployment rate in July was 9.7%. <o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>Byron
Leydecker, JcT</span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>Chair, Friends
of Trinity River</span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>PO Box 2327</span></i><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>Mill Valley, CA
94942-2327</span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>415 383 4810
land</span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>415 519 4810
cell</span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'><a
href="mailto:bwl3@comcast.net"><span style='color:blue'>bwl3@comcast.net</span></a></span></i></b><b><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'><a
href="mailto:bleydecker@stanfordalumni.org"><span style='color:blue'>bleydecker@stanfordalumni.org</span></a>
</span></i></b><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>(secondary)</span></i><b><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'><a
href="http://fotr.org/"><span style='color:blue'>http://www.fotr.org</span></a>
</span></i></b><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
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