Big jump in jobless claims

January's employment report for L.A. County and California won’t be released until tomorrow, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics provided a not-so-encouraging hint of what might be in store. Last month 54,153 Californians filed initial unemployment-benefit claims because they were let go as part of a mass layoff, a 25 percent jump from December. From Tom Petruno at Money & Co.:

Among the 50 states, California had by far the largest number of mass-layoff cuts in January, but that isn’t surprising given the state’s No. 1 rank in population. New York ranked second in mass-layoff claims, at 31,893. Next were Pennsylvania (29,656), Ohio (27,971) and Michigan (26,453). The number of California companies announcing mass layoffs totaled 651 last month, up 19% from 546 in December. The national total for January was 3,806 companies, up 13%.

One bit of hopeful news: Mass-layoff benefit claims in California were up 40 percent from a year earlier, which is substantially lower than the nationwide increase of 152 percent. Of course all these numbers are off the charts.