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Good news for California, the state unemployment rate has dropped to a 16-year low. Loree Levy, with the California Employment Development Department says the rate fell to 4.8% in April - which is an improvement over March's number of 4.9% and even better than where California was one year ago when the state unemployment rate sat at 5.5%.
"That's the lowest the state's unemployment rate has been since way back in January, February of 2001. And in fact, we're getting very very closer to the record of 4.7% that dates back to the 1970s," Levy said.
It's not all wine and roses in California - Imperial County reported the highest unemployment in the state at 19.2%. Farming communities tend to report higher unemployment during the winter and early spring when farms don't need their services.
On the other hand, the high tech sector was doing well - San Mateo County reported the lowest unemployment rate at 2.5%.
Levy said "We had a bit of a blip in April, and we had employment fall by 16,300 but that's just the third job loss in nearly 6 years. So the overall trend continues to look very good."
National unemployment currently sits at 4.4%.
State job growth slowed last month with a decrease in the amount of jobs created in the state decreasing according to Levy. Over the last year, California's recovery has continued by adding just under 237,000 new jobs.