ARG Insights Unemployment
As of March 2023, the national unemployment rate was 3.5% – a record low by any standards. Los Angeles came in at 5.3% and Or - ange County at a rock-bottom 3.4% (see charts on page 11). Even a year after the Fed has been aggressively raising rates to tame inflation, the job market remains incredibly hot. As mentioned earlier, the accounting and finance sectors are even tighter. We have seen the talent supply in Southern California dwindle for various reasons, including people leaving the industry in pursuit of other careers, out-of-state relocations, and fewer college graduates entering the field. The demand for accounting and finance professionals continues to outpace the supply. Job Openings and Labor Force Participation This is where the rubber hits the road: Per CNN.com, over the past 12 months, the labor market has seen a net gain of more than 4.1 million jobs, averaging 345,417 jobs gained per month, helping drop the unemployment rate to decades-low levels all while we are al- most back to pre-pandemic labor force participation rates (see chart on page 13). Although March missed the estimate for job creation and came in at 236,000 (still a historically strong gain but the smallest in more than two years), the overall quarter was very strong. However, the job market remains above pre-pandemic norms. To put this in perspective: Between 2010 and 2019, the economy added an average of 183,000 jobs per month.
So, the job market may have slowed a bit, but it’s still incredibly strong, far outpacing anything we’ve seen in recent history.
6 ARG Quarterly Barometer Q2 2023
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