Jobless numbers drop

L.A. County unemployment fell in February to 5.3 percent from 5.7 percent a month earlier, and 30,400 jobs were added to the rolls, many of them in Hollywood-related industries that had been impacted by the writers strike. Just as we expected, the new numbers show that the economic impact of the long walkout turned out to be much ado about not much. Actually, show business might be one of the industries relatively insulated from any economic downdraft. February was good on a lot of fronts, with eight of 11 industries posting gains from the previous month. Even manufacturing was up 1,700 jobs. Of course let's not get too excited - the year-over-year numbers still showed big drops in a bunch of categories. Statewide, the February jobless rate was 5.7 percent and nationwide it was 5 percent. Here's the EDD release.