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Labor Analysts Baffled by Unemployment Numbers

Employment and labor analysts say there are some baffling aspects to this week's report of large unemployment increases in San Diego, and throughout California. KPBS reporter Alan Ray has details.

Labor Analysts Baffled by Unemployment Numbers

Employment and labor analysts say there are some baffling aspects to this week's report of large unemployment increases  in San Diego, and throughout California. KPBS reporter Alan Ray has details.

Statewide unemployment hit 8.2 per cent last month. San Diego unemployment was 6.8 per cent. But Steven Levy at the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy says neither number is a true reflection of the number of people who lost jobs.

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Levy:  Part of the increase in unemployment is from people who entered the workforce...not from job layoffs. The number of people who have been added to the unemployment rolls is much higher that the actual jobs losses.

Levy says that with growing numbers of migrant workers going back to Mexico because of the poor California economy, the labor force should reasonably have been reduced. Instead, it increased, and neither Levy nor anybody else yet knows where all those people came from. Alan Ray, KPBS News.