Pasadena unemployment rate up to 8.6 percent

It is still lower than the L.A. county wide numbers and state-wide numbers, but Pasadena is beginning to catch up. This time last year, the city had a 4.7 percent unemployment rate, and was far lower than the county, state, and nation- it had barely increased from boom times.

I wrote an article last summer when the rate hit 5.7 percent. In it, county economist Jack Kyser opined that Pasadena's unemployment rate would not rise too much because it has so many employees who work at colleges (PCC, Caltech). Normally, in recessions that is a pretty safe job, because of the size of college endowments or state sponsorship.

This time, it didn't prove to be enough of a safeguard for Caltech employees- several dozen were laid off a few months back, making a contribution to the rising unemployment rate.

Still, I would imagine the bulk of the unemployment is coming from financial services, banking, and other white collar office jobs. By comparison, Claremont, another university town which I would think has a higher percentage of workers in college employ than Pasadena, is only at 5.9 percent unemployment.