The annual State of the City events always presents an opportunity to learn more about where you live in recap format, including on the local labor force.
On Thursday, Santa Clarita Councilman Cameron Smyth dove into figures that showed a bright future for the local labor force.
“Santa Clarita continues to be the most business-friendly city in the Los Angeles County,” he said. “Whether that’s designing new technology or filming top TV shows or creating world-class experiences, Santa Clarita remains an ideal place to work.”
The unemployment rate for the city as of July was 5.1 percent, he announced.
In March, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 4.20 percent of people in Santa Clarita residents who wanted jobs could not find them, a nearly one-percent increase since July.
A similar pattern has been seen across L.A. County, according to the state’s Employment Development Department.
Still, California’s job market has remained robust in multiple cities, including Santa Clarita. By comparison, the city of Delano ranked the highest in unemployment in March this year with 31.9 percent and a 12.2 percent in May 2010 statewide.
In the past year, Smyth said, the number of jobs grew by four percent, “which translates to 3,000 more jobs available in Santa Clarita.”
A good indicator of the strength of an area’s job market is the income per capita and the median household income. The city’s income per capita is just more than $35,000, 12 percent higher than the state average, and the median household income is $85,042, which placed 33 percent above the California average.
“Santa Clarita has a very educated community, and it reflects that in the numbers,” Smyth said. “We also have a very young working community.”
He said with new development and current city services, like the Business Incubator, he believes the unemployment rate could drop.
“The Needham Ranch Project is going to play a big role because that’s going to be adding hundreds of thousands of square feet of industrial space without any housing,” he said.
The councilman said he would like to see more jobs in the Santa Clarita to help reduce the number of residents traveling outside of the Santa Clarita Valley.
“There’s no other city that continues to rank amongst the best places to live and work,” said Smyth on Thursday.
