Los Angeles County’s unemployment rate dipped to 5.8% in April from 5.9% in March as employers in the county added more than 16,000 jobs to their payrolls, according to state data released May 16.

The California Employment Development Department reported the county posted its second straight monthly decline in the unemployment rate to 5.8%, a welcome change from a string of months when the rate topped 6%.

The main driver behind the drop in the unemployment rate was a decline of 6,000 people in the county’s labor force to 5.07 million in April. That followed a steeper drop of 22,000 in March.

The labor force has been sluggish in Los Angeles and statewide for several years, in large part because as people are fleeing the region due to high housing costs, according to an analysis of the April data from Beverly Grove-based Beacon Economics. A demographic shift is another factor as the retirement of aging workers has outpaced the entry of younger workers, the Beacon Economics analysis said. These trends affect both the growth of the labor force and the rate of new job creation.

The unemployment figures come from a survey of households in Los Angeles County, while the payroll jobs figures come from a sampling of employer payroll data submitted to the state.

The county’s 5.8% unemployment rate was still above the 5.6% reading for April of last year. It was also above the April statewide unemployment rate of 5.3% and well above the 4.2% nationwide rate.

The Employment Development Department also released a breakout of the April unemployment rates by city, though unlike the countywide figure, these rates are not adjusted for seasonal factors.

The county’s two largest cities – Los Angeles and Long Beach – posted rates of 5.3% and 4.9 % respectively. The EDD data did not shed any light on whether January’s Palisades fire affected the city of Los Angeles figure.

Among cities with more than 10,000 people in the labor force, Lomita had the lowest unemployment rate in March at 2.4% while Calabasas had the highest rate at 7.5%.

Among the Los Angeles County cities in the San Fernando, Conejo, Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys with labor forces exceeding 10,000, Santa Clarita posted the lowest rate in April of 4.9%, followed by San Fernando at 5.2% and Glendale at 5.3%.

On the high end, after Calabasas and its 7.5% unemployment rate in April, Burbank was next at 6.6%, followed by Lancaster at 6.4% and Palmdale at 6.2%.

Gains in payroll jobs

After a small drop in payroll jobs in March, the number of jobs in Los Angeles County rose by 16,100 in April to 4.59 million.

The growth was spread out among several sectors, including accommodation/food services (up 4,000 jobs), health care/social assistance (up 3,500 jobs) and construction (up 2,900).

Several sectors also posted modest drops in payroll jobs in April, led by retail trade (down 1,700 jobs) and manufacturing (down 1,000).

The EDD also releases a total payroll jobs figure adjusting for various seasonal factors, such as hiring in the education sector. For April, that figure showed a small gain of 400 jobs from March, meaning most of the increase of 16,000 jobs could be attributed to seasonal factors.

For the 12-month period ending in April, total payroll employment in the county increased by 8,300, or 0.2% That is a small gain by historical standards, but it broke a three-month string of drops in this running 12-month total.

Several sectors posted substantial payroll job gains for the 12-month period ending in April, led by health care/social assistance (up 43,000) and local government (up 10,500, split almost evenly between K-12 education and other government functions).

The manufacturing sector had the largest drop in payroll jobs over the 12-month period ending in April of 16,400 jobs. This continues a decades-long slide that has seen the manufacturing sector shrivel to just 296,000 jobs in April from 831,000 jobs in April 1990, a plunge of 64%.

Other sectors recording drops in payroll jobs for the 12-month period ending in April were food services (down 7,000 jobs) construction (down 5,900), and financial activities (down 5,600 jobs).