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Economy

El Centro Tries to Explain High Unemployment Rate

Two construction workers head back to Mexico through the Calexico border crossing after a day's work.
Ruxandra Guidi
Two construction workers head back to Mexico through the Calexico border crossing after a day's work.
El Centro Tries to Explain High Unemployment Rate
In Imperial County's El Centro, high unemployment has long been a concern. But city officials say the shocking unemployment rate is misleading.

El Centro residents don't like being labeled as the "unemployment capital" of the U.S.

Mayor Cheryl Viegas-Walker said the city is building a new headquarters for the fire department, and it hasn't laid off a single city employee in a year.

But still, she said, the focus is on El Centro's 30 percent unemployment rate.

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"That doesn't mean that 30 percent of those people are chronically unemployed," she said from her office in downtown El Centro. "It very well means that there's a segment of our population that is unemployed at any point in time."

El Centro is the 9th largest agricultural economy in the state of California.

Viegas-Walker said the seasonal nature of the agricultural labor force and the proximity to Mexico make getting out of the current economic downturn especially difficult here.

"Also we are a very sparsely populated county, probably around 175,000 people, and we have a very young community," she added.