The latest employment data from the California Labor Market Information Division (LMID) shows that the region lost 46,800 non-farm jobs between December 2024 and March 2025—a 2.7% decline in industry employment. This decline surpasses the average job loss during the initial quarter of each year. Over the past four years, the region has typically shed 13,150 jobs, which represents approximately 0.8% of its job market. Despite job losses over the month, the region has gained 3,700 jobs over the year.

Changes in industry employment have not been distributed equally across all sectors, with five sectors experiencing job growth in the first quarter of 2025, including professional, scientific, and technical services; private educational services; health care and social assistance; other services; and government. Government (+1,900 jobs) and health care and social assistance (+1,800 jobs) saw the largest job gains in industries across the region in the first three months of 2025. While these sectors added 4,600 jobs to the region since December 2024, the gains in each sector were below the job growth typically seen over the last four years.

The transportation and warehousing (-24,600 jobs), retail trade (-10,100 jobs), and construction (-5,400 jobs) sectors experienced the largest job losses across all industries. Job losses in the first quarter of 2025 were more severe than those experienced in the previous four years. Figure 1 displays the changes in job counts across all regional industries in the first quarter of 2025.