The latest numbers from California’s Employment Development Department indicate the number of local jobs dipped in February, but Santa Clarita remains above its prepandemic levels, just over five years after the global health crisis.
A comparison with other cities that Santa Clarita uses
as benchmarks shows the varying levels of success cities have had in bringing back jobs after COVID-19.
The EDD data reported Santa Clarita’s highest jobs total ever in September 2024 thanks in part to seasonal summer hiring at places like Six Flags Magic Mountain, with 119,500 jobs citywide at 5.7% unemployment.
February saw a slight dip that economic officials attributed to the end of seasonal winter employment — which resulted in 117,300 jobs at 5.5% unemployment.
City Manager Ken Striplin attributed the city’s growth to new businesses coming to Santa Clarita in the last year, during a meeting of the city’s Budget Committee in February.
“The number of businesses in our community grew to … almost 10,400 in the first half, in the first quarter of 2024, which is up about 450 businesses on the first quarter of 2023,” Striplin said. “This directly correlates to the number of jobs in Santa Clarita.”
The last time the city averaged more than 116,000 jobs for the year was 2019, when unemployment was at 4.1%, according to the state’s EDD numbers. Unemployment at levels between 4% and 5% is traditionally considered “full” employment, according to economists.
The following year, the COVID-19 global health crisis nearly tripled the number of unemployed residents from 4,800 to 12,600 in a year, and the rate to 11.3%.
The state’s data also shows the difficulty other areas have had in clawing those jobs back.
In 2020, the city reported an average of just over 111,100 jobs; and 111,8000 in 2021. The annual average for 2022 and 2023 was 112,700.
Job retention and business attraction are efforts the city works on with the SCV Economic Development Corp.
Neither Jason Crawford, director of community development for the city of Santa Clarita, nor Tom Cole, the city’s director of economic development, responded to a request for comment on this story.
City Communications Manager Carrie Lujan referred questions to the SCV Economic Development Corp.
Scott Heffernan, director of marketing and research for the EDC, frequently prepares financial reports for the private-public partnership between the city, county and business community.
On Thursday, he said in a phone interview that recent “benchmarking,” which includes a regular reevaluation of the data by local economists, resulted in the SCV workforce being larger than its previous count, but the archived data did not reflect any adjustments as of Friday.
The EDC works to promote business retention and job growth by marketing to companies about why they should relocate here. He said there are a lot of factors that can lead to local fluctuations in employment, everything from a citywide internship hiring program to seasonal jobs.
For comparison’s sake
During a city Development Committee meeting Tuesday, Crawford mentioned Glendale, Thousand Oaks and Ventura as three cities Santa Clarita used as a comparison when looking at a potential fee for developers.
Those cities reflect different outcomes in terms of how a city can claw back jobs once they’ve left the area, whether due to a health crisis or changing trends.
Glendale touted 104,100 jobs and 4.1% unemployment in 2019. The following year, unemployment had tripled to 12.7% and the city had 2,500 fewer jobs and nearly 13,000 unemployed thanks to the pandemic
For 2023, Glendale averaged 101,700 jobs, and last month, it reported 96,100 jobs and 6% unemployment, a loss of 8,000 jobs from its prepandemic level.
Officials with the city of Glendale’s Economic Development Division said they would not be able to respond to a request for comment as of this story’s publication.
Thousand Oaks and the city of Ventura in neighboring Ventura County reported different levels of job recovery, but both touted 4.1% unemployment in the most recent figures available.
The city of Ventura, which had 55,300 jobs in 2019, reported 52,700 jobs in 2021, and then 57,500 jobs in February.
Thousand Oaks has not quite reached the prepandemic level for its workforce. The city reported an average of 64,400 jobs in 2019. The data indicated there were 63,500 in February.
That same month, during a fiscal forecast for Santa Clarita’s first budget meeting, Striplin said global growth is expected to remain stable but underwhelming at 3.2%. That’s slightly ahead of Kiplinger’s projection for national growth, which is projected at 2.4%, slightly down from 2024.
“In all, the current trends point to a stable (national) economy with potential for growth in several sectors, but modest rates,” Striplin said.
“However, in 2025 the UCLA Anderson Forecast expects the California economy to grow at a rate that is faster than the U.S. economy,” he added. “New jobs in the manufacturing industry are expected to play a critical role in that growth, with several large corporations opening new facilities across the state.”
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