Photo by Raquel Natalicchio for CalMatters

She describes the over a year long job hunt as frustrating and tiring. Nance Parry spends hours each day in front of her computer searching and applying for jobs. The leisure and hospitality sectors in California, Nevada, New York and Florida have all added jobs back more slowly than the sectors have nationally. Florida, another high-tourism state, stands apart among high-tourism states with a 4.6% unemployment rate overall.

New York, which also has a large tourism industry, has an overall unemployment rate of 6.9%. “It’s not a coincidence that two states (California and Nevada) that are heavily reliant on tourism and entertainment have not done as well, given the demise of tourism and entertainment under COVID,” said Manuel Pastor, a professor of sociology and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. Parry is currently unemployed and searching for work. A note with words of encouragement at Nance Parry’s home in Duarte on Dec. Visitors buy lunches at cafes and stay in hotels when travel dried up, those businesses bore the brunt. One explanation for the gap between the rate at which California’s leisure and hospitality industry has recovered jobs and the rate at which the industry has recovered jobs nationally, Bengali said, is that international tourism, a large part of the state’s economy, was particularly hard hit during the pandemic. Nationwide, the industry was just 9% smaller in September than it was pre-pandemic. Leila Bengali, an economist at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, pointed out California’s leisure and hospitality sectors employed almost 18% fewer people in September 2021 than pre-pandemic, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But the fact that so many Californians work in the leisure and hospitality industries - which saw massive layoffs in the beginning of the pandemic - contributes to the state’s lagging employment recovery now. Why is California’s jobless rate bouncing back more slowly?Įven pre-pandemic, California’s overall unemployment rate was usually slightly above the national rate. But other data suggest the news isn’t all bad: There are lots of job openings and workers are quitting their jobs in droves, which is often a sign that people are optimistic they can find a better job. One contributor to the state’s lagging employment situation is that California’s large leisure and hospitality sector - made up of hotels, restaurants and more - hasn’t rebounded as quickly as the rest of the country’s. Nance Parry spends hours each day at home gazing in her computer while searching and applying for jobs at her home in Duarte. October’s national unemployment rate is several points lower, at 4.6%. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the state recorded a 7.3% unemployment rate, the highest in the country, a distinction California shares with Nevada. Parry is one of roughly 1.4 million Californians who are out of work and looking for jobs. “I don’t know if I’m going to end up living in my car or what because without a job you can’t get an apartment,” she said. Her landlord has tried to evict her three times, she says, and she’s worried about what will happen when LA county’s eviction protections end in January 2022.

“I need to work.” She needs new glasses and electrical work done on her car, but won’t be able to pay for either of those things until she gets a new job. “I’ve tried to survive, you know, paid bills and food and everything on $200 a month after the rent is paid,” Parry said. She says she’s sent out two to three resumes per weekday since but that’s netted a grand total of one interview, leaving her to live off of a monthly $1,200 Social Security check, $1,030 of which is used to pay rent for her apartment in Duarte. Just five weeks into what Parry thought would be a six-month contract, she was laid off from a job as a document specialist for an engineering firm. Nance Parry says she’s sent out more than 1,000 resumes since she got laid off in September 2019.

California unemployment