In August, Nevada County reported the lowest unemployment rate, 8.9 percent, in the Sacramento—Arden-Arcade—Yuba City, Calif.-Nev. Combined Statistical Area, followed by Placer County, at 9.3 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Richard J. Holden, the Bureau’s regional commissioner, noted that Yuba County registered the highest jobless rate in the area, at 17.1 percent. All eight counties in the Sacramento area posted unemployment rates that were above the U.S. rate of 8.2 percent. (See chart 1. The Technical Note at the end of this release contains the metropolitan area definition. All data in this release are not seasonally adjusted; accordingly, over-the-year analysis is used throughout.)

In August, all eight Sacramento area counties registered over-the-year unemployment rate declines, with the rate of decline ranging from 1.7 percentage points in Douglas and Sacramento Counties to 0.2 percentage point in Sutter County. Nationally, the unemployment rate fell 0.9 percentage points from August a year ago. (See table A).

Unemployment rates fell in all Sacramento area counties from August 2010 to August 2012. The largest decreases occurred in Sacramento County, down 2.3 percentage points, followed by El Dorado, Nevada, and Placer Counties, 2.2 points. Only Sutter County had a decrease that was smaller than the nationwide decrease of 1.3 percentage points. Yuba County has had the highest unemployment rate in August for each of the past three years.

Technical Note

This release presents unemployment rate data for states and counties from the Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) program, a federal-state cooperative endeavor. 

Definitions. The labor force and unemployment data are based on the same concepts and definitions as those used for the official national estimates obtained from the Current Population Survey (CPS), a sample survey of households that is conducted for the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) by the U.S. Census Bureau. The LAUS program measures employment and unemployment on a place-of-residence basis.  The universe for each is the civilian noninstitutional population 16 years of age and over.  Employed persons are those who did any work at all for pay or profit in the reference week (the week including the 12th of the month) or worked 15 hours or more without pay in a family business or farm, plus those not working who had a job from which they were temporarily absent, whether or not paid, for such reasons as labor-management dispute, illness, or vacation. Unemployed persons are those who were not employed during the reference week (based on the definition above), had actively looked for a job sometime in the 4-week period ending with the reference week, and were currently available for work; persons on layoff expecting recall need not be looking for work to be counted as unemployed.  The labor force is the sum of employed and unemployed persons. The unemployment rate is the number of unemployed as a percent of the labor force.

Method of estimation. Estimates for the substate areas in this release are prepared through indirect estimation procedures using a building-block approach. Employment estimates, which are based largely on "place of work" estimates from the Current Employment Statistics (CES) program, are adjusted to refer to place of residence as used in the CPS. Unemployment estimates are aggregates of persons previously employed in industries covered by state unemployment insurance (UI) laws and entrants to the labor force data from the CPS. The substate estimates of employment and unemployment, which geographically exhaust the entire state, are adjusted proportionally to ensure that they add to the independently estimated state or balance-of-state totals. A detailed description of the estimation procedures is available from BLS upon request.

Annual revisions. Labor force and unemployment data for prior years reflect adjustments made at the end of each year, usually implemented with January estimates. The adjusted estimates reflect updated population data from the U.S. Census Bureau, any revisions in the other data sources, and model reestimation.

Area definitions. The substate area data published in this release reflect the standards and definitions established by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, dated December 1, 2009. A detailed list of the geographic definitions is available at http://www.bls.gov/lau/lausmsa.htm. 

The Sacramento—Arden-Arcade—Yuba City, Calif.-Nev. Combined Statistical Area (CSA) includes El Dorado, Nevada, Placer, Sacramento, Sutter, Yolo, and Yuba Counties in California, and Douglas County in Nevada.

Information in this release will be made available to sensory impaired individuals upon request. Voice phone:  (202) 691-5200; TDD message referral phone: 1-800-877-8339.

Last Modified Date: October 17, 2012