The concept of unemployment and the city of Sacramento are becoming more closely associated. A recent study by job search engine Juju.com shows unemployment in the River City as an ongoing trend.
With 10.97 unemployed people per advertised job, Juju ranked Sacramento 44 out of the top 50 populated cities in the U.S. to find a job. Washington, D.C. ranked number one.
Juju.com Vice President Brendan Cruickshank said Sacramento’s job market was hit hard. To put the city in perspective, Detroit is faring as the worst city to find a job with 20.76 unemployed people per advertised job.
Cruickshank said Sacramento contains many government positions that would be secure in other states, but the state’s economy is doing comparatively worse than others. California as a whole was ranked 42nd for unemployment.
Other industries are suffering, Cruickshank said.
“[In Sacramento] there’s been a big decline in jobs in construction and manufacture,” he said. “They’ve taken big hits. [Unemployment] has hurt even stable segments.”
The study will continue in the following months and Cruickshank said he hopes to record more city and nationwide trends as the U.S. continues through the recession.
Juju’s unemployment index is fairly new. This is the third month the site has recorded unemployment in comparison to listed jobs.
“[Juju.com is] going to do this monthly throughout the year to have some interesting [trends],” Cruickshank said.
Since the economy took a turn for the worse, job hunting traffic has increased on the website, he added.
Nationwide, unemployment reached 10 percent. Sacramento faces a similar unemployment rate to the statewide 12.4 percent.
Statistician at the Western Regional Bureau of Labor Statistics David Kong said the Sacramento labor force is growing and more of those people are now looking for work.
Recent UC Davis graduate and now unemployed Jesse Isaacson, a computer science and engineering major, has been looking for a computer-related job in the Sacramento region since September.
“I have managed to get a few interviews in the Bay Area, [but] it seems much harder to find a job in the Sacramento area,” Isaacson said in an e-mail interview. “The search does get a little demoralizing after a while, after about the 500th letter saying, ‘You appear to be a great applicant, but we are going to go with a more qualified applicant.'”
With connections and friends from Davis, Isaacson said the Sacramento area would be the ideal place to work. He may, however, have to give up on his plans since he is still on the job hunt after spring 2009 graduation.
Similar to what the Juju.com study found, Isaacson was told Sacramento jobs are few and come far in between.
“From what I heard from recruiters, [jobs] in this area are very scarce,” Isaacson said. “Not a whole lot of people seem to be hiring. And those that are have been turning to the more experienced people who have been let go from other companies.”
SASHA LEKACH can be reached at city@theaggie.org.
