California is home to hottest US job market. Guess where?

”Survey says” looks at various rankings and scorecards judging geographic locations while noting these grades are best seen as a mix of artful interpretation and data.

Buzz: Stockton had the past year’s highest percentage increase in employment in the nation.

Source: My trusty spreadsheet looked at the hiring pace in the nation’s 100 largest job markets – including 10 metropolitan areas from California – for the 12 months ending in September, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report.

Topline

On a percentage basis, the number of jobs in the Stockton metropolitan area grew by 4.3% since September 2023. No Top 100 metro did better.

To be fair, this is a small job market. Stockton bosses added 11,800 positions in the 12 months – the 36th biggest increase of the 100 by count. That brought the metro’s total employment to 289,600, No. 95 in size of the 100.

By the way, the New York region had the largest increase in workers by count – up 149,600 in a year. That’s 1.5% growth (No. 50 among the 100). New York is the nation’s largest job market with 10.23 million workers.

Details

Curiously, the state’s next three spots for fast hiring paces were also inland metros …

Fresno: 2.2% growth (No. 14 nationally) – 8,700 positions added (No. 42 in US) – to 396,800 million jobs (No. 69)

Sacramento: 2% growth (No. 29) – 21,400 positions added (No. 18) – to 1.10 million jobs (No. 35)

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Inland Empire: 1.98% growth (No. 30) – 33,200 positions added (No. 10) – to 1.71 million jobs (No. 16)

And elsewhere across California, ranked by the hiring pace …

Ventura County: 1.7% growth (No. 42 nationally) – 5,300 positions added (No. 64 in US) – to 318,600 million jobs (No. 81)

Los Angeles and Orange counties: 1.3% growth (No. 60) – 81,800 positions added (No. 3) – to 6.28 million jobs (No. 2)

Bakersfield: 1.2% growth (No. 64) – 3,500 positions added (No. 80) – to 293,400 million jobs (No. 93)

San Diego County: 1% growth (No. 68) – 15,600 positions added (No. 28) – to 1.56 million jobs (No. 18)

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San Francisco: 0.6% growth (No. 79) – 15,100 positions added (No. 32) – to 2.47 million jobs (No. 11)

San Jose: 0.3% growth (No. 88) – 3,600 positions added (No. 79) – to 1.16 million jobs (No. 32)

Bottom line

When looking back a year, the national job market slightly outgrew California.

There was 1.49% growth nationwide – that’s 2.3 million more workers to 159.2 million – compared to California’s 1.42% job growth – 252,500 new positions to 18.1 million.

Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at jlansner@scng.com