Number of New Jobs in County Drops to Lowest Since ’83 : Economy: February’s 0.09% increase in non-agricultural jobs is essentially a no-growth situation that shows the recession’s effects.

SANTA ANA —  The number of jobs created in Orange County in February dropped to the lowest level since the county started to recover from its last economic recession in April, 1983, according to state employment figures released Monday.

Only 1,100 new, non-agricultural jobs were created in the county from a year earlier, an increase of 0.09%, according to the state Employment Development Department.

That kind of increase is essentially a no-growth situation for Orange County and shows the effects of recessionary pressures on the local economy since February, 1990, local experts say.

In 1983, after a recession caused the number of jobs to drop for 13 months in a row, the county saw 400 new jobs created, then a 0.04% increase, said Eleanor Jordan, a labor market analyst for the state agency.

The latest figures are a bellwether for worse times ahead, said James Doti, director of business forecasting at the Center for Economic Research at Chapman College in Orange.

“These figures seem to support our view that the local economy is still in a retrenching mode,” Doti said. “I think that it will continue to get worse before it gets better.”

Doti said his own forecasts show that the county will start to lose jobs in the third and fourth quarters.

Jordan pointed out that the retail industry in the county is continuing to lose jobs--1,700 over the previous 12 months. Department stores, in particular, are laying off employees, she said. The closing this month of Buffums department stores is not reflected in the figures and, with only three stores in the county, won’t have much of an impact on the local retail numbers anyway, she said.

The loss in retail jobs indicates that consumer spending hasn’t revived and that the sector is slimming down as it gets increasingly competitive, Doti said.

The construction and the manufacturing sectors also continued to suffer, losing 10,900 jobs and 2,900 jobs, respectively, over the year. Manufacturing jobs have been leaving the county for years.

The loss of construction jobs, however, is related to the real estate slump that finally hit Southern California. The loss will have a bigger effect on the local economy as fewer people move into new homes and fewer appliances and other retail items are purchased, Doti said.

Jordan found it “encouraging” that the county’s unemployment rate did not increase over the previous month. The rate remained at 4.7%, well below the 7.4% state and the 6.5% federal rates. The county’s jobless figure, however, isn’t seasonally adjusted as state and federal figures are.

Another encouraging factor, she said, is that the number of jobs in the services industry continued to grow, particularly in health, business and education. Jobs in the health industry rose 4,400 over the year, while private education added 1,200 new positions and business services grew by 1,000 new posts. Also, the tourism industry added 2,400 jobs to the local market.

Local governments and the local offices of state agencies increased their employment ranks with 7,200 new employees.

O.C. Unemployment Rate Jan. 1990: 2.9% Feb. 1991: 4.7% Source: California Employment Development Department