Sour jobs report

California's unemployment rate held steady in December at 9.8 percent, third-highest in the nation after Nevada and Rhode Island, and the separate payroll survey showed a loss of 17,500 jobs. (Here's the EDD report.) The full year was actually quite good for the state, with an increase of 225,900 jobs in 2012, up 1.6 percent from a year earlier. Construction, financial, educational and health services, and leisure and hospitality were among the sectors that advanced. But the overall job picture has cooled during the last couple of months - not great timing for a state that has been getting good press of late for its turnaround. It's doubtful that California's economy has taken some fundamental nosedive (the national picture remains good but not great). But fragile recoveries like this one often experience hiccups and inconsistency. There's also quite a difference between the survey that measures payroll jobs and the one that determines the unemployment rate. In L.A. County, the December unemployment rate was unchanged at 10.2 percent, with 9,600 jobs added to the rolls from the previous month.