April Unemployment Drops

The unemployment numbers for California were released last week and the state saw a decrease in unemployment from 11.2% in March to 11% in April. Continuing the downward trend was Santa Barbara County which saw a decrease from 8.6% to 7.6% in the last month.

Overall, the Cities of Santa Barbara and Goleta remain relatively strong with unemployment numbers under 5.5%. There have not been any huge blows to the labor markets locally despite tourism numbers down and retail sales continuing to lag.

Historically, unemployment numbers tend to rise slightly in the summer months so we could see some indicators of that when May numbers are released two weeks from now.