Los Angeles County added 4,900 jobs in May and its unemployment rate dipped to 4.9%, from 5.2% in April. In the last 12 months, California added jobs at a rate of 2.8%, compared with 1.7% for the U.S. overall. The gain was slight compared with April, when the state added 70,000 jobs, revised upward from an initial estimate of 59,600. The state’s unemployment rate ticked down for the fifth month in a row, hitting 5.2%, still higher than the national rate of 4.7%, the Employment Development Department said Friday. The state has added jobs almost every month since July 2011 and has recently been expanding employment faster than the rest of the nation.

Source: Los Angeles Times June 17, 2016 16:51 UTC