Unemployment Data for Humboldt County, by Local Area

The California Employment Development Department  has just released a breakdown of unemployment figures for Humboldt County, California, sorted by individual cities and towns. The below figures were released yesterday, November 20, 2009. The EDD releases these statistics on a monthly basis. Current statistics reflect the EDD’s findings as of October 31, 2009.

The City of Rio Dell seems to be the hardest hit in the community,with a whopping 16% unemployment rate. Well above both the state and national unemployment averages. Ferndale had the absolute lowest level of unemployment with just 2.6%. Willow Creek seems to be holding steady at a relatively impressive 7.2%, despite town’s poor economy, lack of any major employers or new jobs.

Just a quick view of the below chart shows that unemployment seems to be highest in “metro” areas of Humboldt County, with Eureka, Arcata and McKinleyville all having jobless ratings over 11%. The more sparsely populated areas of Humboldt County seem to have the lowest rates of unemployment. The sole exception being Fortuna, which managed an unemployment rate of  only 7.6%. Fortuna was well below both the state and county unemployment rate averages.

The state unemployment average for all counties in California was approximately 12.5% during the same period. As expected, Northern California counties have been hit the hardest, garnering most of the top positions in yesterday’s poll. Trinity County had the most unemployment in the region at a rate of 17.9%. The relatively affluent Marin County had the lowest unemployment rate in the entire state with just 8.1% of its population being unemployed. The absolute worst area of California ends-up being Imperial County, with a whopping 30% unemployment rate.

Below are some statistics for other areas of the state as of October 2009, as well as a complete comparison of cities and towns in Humboldt County.

Sonoma County – 10.1%

Mendocino County- 10.6%

Lake County – 16.2%

Napa County- 9%

San Francisco (metro area) – 9.3%

Shasta County- 15.3%

Tehama County-  13.9%

Trinity County- 17.9%

Siskiyou County- 14.7%

Imperial County- 30%

Marin County- 8.1% (lowest in State)

U.S. Army Employment Website

There was a major article in the press today about civilian jobs currently available in the U.S. Army. The article seemed to imply that there are job opportunities nationwide and internationally. Whether that translates to jobs in Humboldt County remains to be seen, as their job search feature was not working (overloaded?) as of a few minutes ago. We will be adding the listing permanently to our regular job listings later today. Until then, you may want to try the below link.

U.S. Army Civilian Personnel Online

Humboldt County Jobs Editors

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The County of Humboldt IT department (Eureka, California) is looking for one or two interns
to work over the summer. The internship is arranged through the StepUP
program and the interns must be apart of the StepUP program.

StepUP Coordinator, Laura Chancellor at 445-6226 or 1-800-242-1353
from outside the local calling area

“Good news! The Humboldt County Workforce Investment Board is kicking
off the summer session of the StepUP for Youth Jobs program and we
hope you’ll offer a work site for a youth. We anticipate more funding
through federal stimulus this year and hope to employ 200 youth in our
community. We need to arrange these worksites NOW, in order for youth
to start work in June. “

So, what do these numbers tell us? Government jobs represent about 30% of the total workforce in Humboldt County. Unfortunately, the survey does not take into account those employed by non-profits and other entities that receive part or most of their funding from various government agencies and tax breaks from the Internal Revenue Service.

If you toss-in the number of unemployed, those receiving some type of government benefits, those working for non-profits, etc. the number is probably well over 50%. Since the population of Humboldt County is around 110,000, this would mean that 20% of the population (and the taxes they pay) are supporting the other 80% of the population.

Obviously, that number does not include children, who are by definition, dependents. Still, this number shows the overwhelming tax burden placed upon those employed by private businesses. If you take into account that those on the very low end of employment pay scales are probably exempt from many taxes, you will find the tax burden upon the middle class of Humboldt County is getting beyond the breaking point.

The good news? About the only good news the EDD had to report this month is that Humboldt County has about the same unemployment rate as the rest of the state. On the flipside though, the average job in Humboldt County probably pays substantially less than the average job in other parts of the state. A job that pays perhaps $12 an hour in Eureka might pay $25 an hour in San Diego. Although it may be more expensive to rent or buy a home in San Diego (just an example), mortgage rates here are the same, as are tax percentages, government fees and permits and other things that have to be accounted into everyone’s cost of living.

All in all, Humboldt County is becoming a very expensive place to live. With a sharp decline in new homes being built, the cost of living is not likely to drop anytime soon, nor are any of the jobs Humboldt has lost in past decade likely to come back. This paints a fairly bleak outlook for those living here, but things could always turn around.

It seems that the WORST websites, in relation to layout and design, are almost always ones that belong to some government agency. The EDD’s in particular is just horrible from a user standpoint. It takes forever to navigate through the various categories and is just plain user-unfriendly. I am pretty sure that this has to do with the fact that most of these sites are built by independent contractors who submit the lowest bid for the project. The companies and individuals with the least experience and lowest quality are generally the winning bidders for projects, and it shows.

The second worst category of websites are generally those designed by large corporations for internal use or are merely an extension of some large website’s existing content. In these cases, a lot of the work is done by existing IT employees. These people may be great in terms of writing scripts and keeping a network running, but they have no clue as to how to make a website attractive and usable for the average person. Some are just plain irritating to dig through.

The BEST designed job hunting websites I have come across are ones built by start-ups and individuals who are really driven by creative design and usefulness. Unlike “low-bidders”, these people will usually spend as long as it takes to finish a project to their own, personal satisfaction. Generally, they set much higher standards for themselves than anyone else would expect of them. I have always been more of a “tech” person than an “art” person myself, so I generally stick to pre-fab templates for my own websites. I’m not very creative. A well-designed template produces a much better website experience than one written from scratch by a bunch of code-oriented developers with no sense of style though. Keeping code simple and focusing on “useability” is they key. You will find this in the most useful websites we list here, like Yahoo! HotJobs, Monster.Com or even the boringly-simple Eureka Reporter. If you are planning a job hunting site, we hope that you will take some of this advice into account.

Located in
rural northwestern California, Humboldt County
(population 126,518) has suffered with the decline of
its two largest industries, timber and fishing. In the
1950s, the lumber industry employed approximately
half of the county‘s labor force. By 1997, it constituted
less than eight percent of the county‘s employment.
Although some of these lost jobs have been replaced
by service and tourism-sector jobs, the new jobs offer
the lowest average salaries. As living wages declined,
housing prices increased, putting home ownership out
of reach for more than 85 percent of county residents.
The poverty rate in Humboldt County is 19.5 percent,
and the unemployment rate is 6.3 percent.