L.A. County has a rough July

Unemployment jumped to 12.4 percent from 12 percent in June, and 30,600 payroll jobs were lost. That number is a little misleading because of the large number of school-related job reductions during the summer break. But there wasn't all that much to take up the slack, which is part of the problem. Retail trade accounted for the biggest month-over-month L.A. gain, at 2,700 jobs - not all that much for a county workforce of 4.2 million. "The recovery paused to take a break," Nancy Sidhu, chief economist at the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp., said in a conference call. But she's not ready to make any changes in her forecast for 2011, which shows slow growth, but growth nonetheless. In case you missed the earlier news, the statewide unemployment rate rose to 12 percent in July from 11.8 percent the month before. The national unemployment rate is 9.1 percent.