Features

California’s unemployment rate hit an eight-month low in October, an indication the state’s economy remains strong despite signs of a national slowdown. 

The state job rate last month was 4.7 percent, down from 4.8 percent in September, the Employment Development Department said Monday. 

In October 1999, the unemployment rate was 5 percent. The national jobless rate for October was 3.9 percent, the same as the month before. 

“It appears to me that things are still moving quite nicely,” said economist Tom Lieser, executive director of the quarterly UCLA Anderson Forecast. 

California’s job growth continued in October, with more than 16.3 million people employed, the most in the state’s history.  

Employment was up by about 70,000 in September and 492,000 the year before. 

Lieser said there have been some signs that the national economy, enjoying the longest stretch of economic growth in U.S. history, was slowing down. 

Wholesale inflation edged up slightly in October due to higher costs for food and natural gas. 

“At this point, California doesn’t look like that. It looks like it’s really running pretty strong at this point,” he said. 

One cautionary note for California’s economy might be declining stock prices for high-tech companies, which could make it difficult for firms to raise new capital for future growth, he said. 

More than 800,000 Californians were unemployed last month, down 11,000 from September and 13,000 from the year before. More than a third of the unemployed residents had been laid off and about 9 percent left their jobs voluntarily. 

Mining and manufacturing jobs were the only two industries to show declines in jobs over the last year. About 600 mining jobs and 1,600 manufacturing jobs were lost. 

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