July jobs report is only fair

All told, not horrible but far from wonderful. The state did add 25,200 payroll jobs last month from June, the most of any state. But L.A. County lost 44,200 jobs, and while local government saw the brunt of the losses (education in particular because the schools moved to summer schedules), other sectors took their lumps. Information, which includes the movie and TV industries, fell by 5,600, health care and social assistance down 3,700, and services down by 2,100. Construction and manufacturing were also down, but not by large amounts. Even leisure and hospitality, normally a growth industry during the summer months, lost 100 positions. The areas that did show gains couldn't make up for the declines elsewhere. The unemployment rate, which is calculated through a separate survey, was unchanged in both California (10.7 percent) and L.A. County (11.2 percent). Now it's only one month and all that, and some sectors, notably movies and TV, have shown real strength year-over-year, but these numbers strongly suggest what economists have been saying for much of the year: That growth is a lot stronger in the Bay Area (the unemployment rate in the San Jose area is 8.7 percent) than it is in L.A., especially inland L.A. That points to a decidedly uneven recovery. Which is kind of a problem considering how important L.A. is to the rest of the state economy.