Business & Tech
March Jobless Figures Released For Banning, Beaumont, RivCo
See the March 2020 unemployment figures from the California Employment Development Department.
SAN GORGONIO PASS AREA, CA — The unemployment rate in Banning hit 6.4 percent while Beaumont was at 4.6 percent last month amid layoffs due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to preliminary figures released Friday by the California Employment Development Department.
March jobless figures for the San Gorgonio Pass and Coachella Valley:
| City/Unincorporated Area | March 2020 | February 2020 | |
| Banning | 6.4% | 5.0% | |
| Beaumont | 4.6% | 3.6% | |
| Coachella | 11.6% | 9.6% | |
| Desert Hot Springs | 6.9% | 5.5% | |
| Indio | 5.9% | 5.1% | |
| Palm Springs | 4.6% | 3.7% | |
| Cabazon | 4.4% | 3.5% | |
| Indian Wells | 4.4% | 3.4% | |
| La Quinta | 4.3% | 3.4% | |
| Cathedral City | 4.3% | 3.1% | |
| Palm Desert | 4.1% | 3.2% | |
| Rancho Mirage | 4.0% | 3.1% |
Riverside County's jobless rate in March, based on preliminary estimates, was 5.3 percent, compared to 4.1 percent in February, according to the EDD.
Find out what's happening in Banning-Beaumontfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
The rate was nearly a full percentage point higher than the year-ago level, when countywide unemployment stood at 4.4 percent.
The last time the jobless rate topped 5 percent in the county was in September 2017, when it was 5.2 percent, according to EDD data. From there, it commenced a steady decline.
Find out what's happening in Banning-Beaumontfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Roughly 58,000 residents were out of work in March, and 1,041,000 were employed, according to the EDD.
The jump in unemployment claims countywide coincided with a wave of increases throughout the country, with 22 million jobless filings in the last four weeks, as businesses rolled back or shuttered operations because of COVID- 19 mitigation measures, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Locally, the city of Coachella had the highest unemployment rate countywide at 11.6 percent, followed by the unincorporated community of East Hemet at 8.2 percent, with the unincorporated communities of Highgrove and Lakeland Village both coming in just behind at 8.1 percent.
The combined unemployment rate for Riverside and San Bernardino counties in March was 5.1 percent, up from 4 percent in February.
Bi-county data indicated payrolls shrank by the widest margin last month — 3,300 — in the leisure and hospitality industry. Additional losses were recorded in the business services, retail trade and construction sectors, which altogether shed 6,100 jobs. Miscellaneous unclassified industries contracted by about 800 positions, according to the EDD.
Payrolls expanded in the public sector, which added 2,700 positions, mostly in schools, with the agricultural, health services, financial services and manufacturing sectors altogether expanding by 3,200 jobs.
The EDD said that the state's jobless rate in March was 5.6 percent.
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