The unemployment rate in San Diego climbed for the second month in a row, reaching 5.3 percent in July, compared with 5.1 percent the month before, the state Employment Development Department reported Friday.
Unemployment had bottomed out at 4.2 percent in May.
San Diego’s rate compared with 5.9 percent statewide and 5.1 percent for the nation as a whole.
The region lost more than 11,000 nonfarm jobs between June and July, most of them from schools as class broke for the summer, according to EDD data.
Those losses were partially offset by gains in arts, entertainment and recreation jobs, as well as hotel and food service hiring. Construction also gained during the month.
In the wider view, San Diego County picked up more than 28,000 jobs over the past year.
The agency said the greatest annual job gains were in hotels and food services, around 7,000 positions; government, 5,700; ambulatory health care services, 3,800; and administration, 3,600.
Last month, 84,500 San Diegans were jobless out of a civilian labor force of almost 1.6 million people. That’s an increase of nearly 20,000 since May, however, the labor force total grew by 36,000 people during the same period.
—City News Service