LAKE COUNTY ? As the holiday season approaches, 350 more Lake County residents joined the unemployed in October raising unemployment to 16.2 percent.
Although services and labor typically drop in the winter, both took nosedives, according to a press release by Dennis Mullins of the Labor Market Information Division of the California Employment Development Department. Leisure and hospitality went down 11.7 percent in October since September and 3.8 percent in a year. Construction, mining and logging had flipped numbers, down 3.2 percent in October since September and 11.8 percent since October 2008.
Lake One-Stop executive director Teddie Pierce has seen these numbers firsthand with about 50 to 110 more people accessing services month by month with an average of 950 visits from job seekers a month, she said.
“Construction in Lake County has come to almost a stand still ? not only are we getting employees from contractors but the contractors themselves,” Pierce said.
Construction jobs dropped statewide in 2008 by about 11.9 percent, accounting for 61 percent of the jobs lost in the year, Mullins said.
Out of 58 California counties, just eight have a higher unemployment than Lake County, according to the California Employment Development Department. Lake County unemployment has shot up 5 percentage points since October 2008. California”s unemployment sits at 12.3 percent, while the U.S. has a rate of 10.3 percent.
Mullins said the October Lake County unemployment rate is the highest it has been since at least 1990, which is the earliest information the Employment Development Department has posted on its Web site.
“It”s the most severe economic downturn since World War II on a statewide basis,” Mullins said.
In Lake County, the state Employment Development Department, Lake One-Stop, the county and a number of services work together to help the unemployed find jobs, Pierce said.
Lake One-Stop aims to ready the workforce for employment with resources such as skill building, resume upgrades, and use of computers, Pierce said. One-Stop also provides help with filing for unemployment insurance and other services. People can also get help with certification to start a different career, such as truck driving or to be a certified nursing assistant.
With stimulus money and other funding, One-Stop matches people with employers and subsidizes the employer”s costs, so that employers train people and pay part or nothing in wages and work compensation, Pierce said.
One-Stop also created a professional networking group called the Konocti Connection that will first meet in December to provide workshops and help people find jobs, Pierce said. The meetings will most likely be from 9 to 11 a.m. the first and third Monday of the month at Lake One-Stop. The employment resource service will soon announce starting dates and how to sign up.
Although economists have reported the recession looks like it”s ending, unemployment usually lags behind and takes a while to improve, Mullins said.
“In spite of the economic downturn, people still have to eat,” Mullins said. “Farm employment went up 1.6 percent over the year in Lake County.”
Contact Katy Sweeny at ksweeny@record-bee.com or call her directly at 263-5636, ext. 37.
