California sees 90,000 people lose their jobs in two weeks

California unemployment benefit claims have hit 90,000 in two weeks, data from the Department of Labor shows.

For the week ending June 8, new claims for jobless benefits shot up by 10,000 from the prior week to 51,000 applications. The previous week’s new benefit claims stood at close to 41,000, bringing the total over the two-week period to slightly more than 90,000 applicants for unemployment support.

The job market in California has recovered from the pandemic era convulsions where the jobless rate catapulted to more than 16 percent. That has come down substantially to 5.3 percent in April, according to Federal Reserve Economic Data. But the state lags behind the national rate which was at 3.9 percent during the same month.

However, the employment picture in the Golden State reveals that employers are still hiring and the net unemployment rate has stayed unchanged for three straight months, according to data from the Employment Development Department (EDD) in California.

It has gained more than three million jobs since April 2020, which authorities say averages out to about 63,000 jobs a month.

It is not clear how many people are moving to California to take up work, or how seasonal adjustments would change the raw data.

In April, there were 5,900 fewer people who were unemployed from the prior month but it still was up close to 165,000, leaving a total of a little over a million workers without jobs. On the flip side, more than 18 million Californians had jobs as of April, a jump of 5,800 for the month but that was 115,000 less than at the same a year ago, the data showed.

“The state’s current job growth started in August 2023 and has amounted to a total gain of 200,300 jobs,” the EDD said in a statement. “This reflects a rebound from the slowdown during the prior 10 months as the state economy settled following its dramatic post-pandemic recovery.”

The state is expected to see average job growth of about 13,000 a month this year, but the Center for Jobs and the Economy pointed out that first quarter data shows that it is lagging behind that forecast. For the first four months of the year, the state added close to 11,000 average jobs per month, they added.

“The number of unemployed is expected to remain elevated throughout this period, staying above the 1 million mark through at least the second quarter of 2026,” the Center for Jobs pointed out in an analysis.

At the national level, seasonally adjusted figures for the week ending June 8 showed 13,000 more workers applied for jobless benefits, bringing a total of 242,000 for the week. While those who are under insurance for unemployment for the week ending June 1 was up 30,000, the data from the Labor Department showed.