San Clemente Unemployment Drops to 4.4 Percent

In May, the San Clemente unemployment rate dropped to 4.4 percent, the lowest it’s been since the July 2008, according to figures released Friday by the California Employment Development Department.

Last month an estimated 1,300 San Clemente residents were looking for work, the CEDD said. That's 100 fewer than in April, and 500 fewer than May 2012.

In the past five years, unemployment was highest in January-March, 2010, when the rate reached as high as 8 percent. Unemployment steadily fell in 2012, beginning the year at 6.6 percent and finishing at 5.5.

As a whole, Orange County had an estimated 89,000 unemployed residents in May, with 1.5 million working residents.

The state's non-seasonally adjusted rate was 8.1 percent in May- seasonal adjustment accounts for seasonal shifts in labor such as increased construction and agricultural work in spring and summer - only non-seasonally adjusted figures are available for individual cities.

How to Use the Map

You can see how every city in the state fared in May's report, by clicking on it in the above map.  The blue cities are within 10 percent of the state average, the light green are have unemployment rates at least 50 percent lower than state average, and darker green cities are between.

Patch Editors Peter Schelden and Dan Abendschein contributed to this report.