Butte County unemployment rose slightly last month, but joblessness overall has been flat despite the increase.
According to data released by California’s Employment Development Department, unemployment increased from 7.1 percent in February to 7.2 in March. This is still below the year-ago estimate by the state, which predicted unemployment to be at 7.8 percent.
The highest employment has gotten in the last year was in July, when it hit 7.7 percent.
Chart created by Joe Silva. Data courtesy of Labor Market Information
Local governments haven’t been worried at all about the slight upturn.
“The jobs-to-housing ratio is how we generally look at it, and that ratio has been recovering since 2012,” said Brian Lasagna, regional analyst for Butte County Association of Governments.
Joblessness reached its peak in Butte County in 2012 at 13.7 percent unemployment. Since then, the economy has slowly recovered down to current levels.
In California as a whole, unemployment has slowly been falling since January, from 5.8 percent to 5.6.