There is both good and not-so-good news for the job market in Los Angeles. The good news is that, according to figures from the state Employment Development Department, last month – for the first time in eight years – unemployment figures in LA County plummeted (from 6.1 the previous month to 5.9 percent). One reason given for this drop was “holiday retail hiring,” which resulted in substantive job gains. This is definitely a welcome change from the 13.2 percent figure of unemployment LA County encountered in 2010.

Indeed, an additional 5,500 jobs were added by California employers in November. However, it seems this figure is not to be celebrated as usually it is more. These job increases were actually the lowest one month jump in over four years and marked a big decrease from the 40,600 job gains the area enjoyed in October.

In terms of industries it seems that the best place to get a job is in construction (due to a rebound from the housing crash), as well as very high paying industries such as accountants, architects, engineers and lawyers. The industries that encountered losses were financial services, logging, mining, and manufacturing.