Official Survey of State Employment Has Overstated Job Growth Since 2022. Since the middle of 2022, the monthly jobs reports have tended to overstate actual employment growth in the state. The monthly jobs survey has been revised downward routinely over this period, as we detailed here.
Shifting Focus Now to Hybrid Measure of Employment Growth That Has Tracked Final Data More Closely. Given the recent tendency for the monthly jobs report to overstate employment growth, we have shifted our focus to a hybrid measure of the labor market that averages the main business survey with another monthly federal survey of employment, the "household survey," which officials use to calculate the state's unemployment rate. The average of these two monthly trends has tended to track the final jobs tally more closely in recent years.
This Month's Job Trends. California's traditional jobs report suggests the state added 18,000 jobs in May, and the April figure was revised up to show a slightly larger job loss. Since the start of the year, the state's traditional jobs report has nevertheless shown a net decline of 10,000 jobs. Our hybrid measure that includes employment data from the monthly household survey suggests the state added a more encouraging 34,000 jobs in May. Since the start of the year, our hybrid measure shows the state has added a net total of 60,000 jobs.