San Diego added 12,200 jobs last month, with all but one sector — manufacturing — seeing growth.

Gains were led by education and health services, as well as retail hiring ahead of the holiday season.

The unemployment rate was 4.7% in October, up from 4.6% in September, state labor officials said Friday. That was higher than the national average of 3.9% but lower than California at 5.4%.

Genine Wilson, CEO of workplace staffing consulting group Lotus Rising, said job gains have increased steadily since the pandemic but gains havent been uniform.

Its the slow incline I expected, she said. But it depends on the specific industry.

Government jobs, mainly education, led hiring in October with 3,800 new jobs. It was followed by the transportation and utilities sector (retail, warehousing) with 2,400 jobs; private education and health services (nursing, social assistance) with 2,200 jobs; professional and business services (legal, scientific, waste management, architectural) with 1,300 jobs; and construction added 1,100 jobs.

Only two sectors failed to join in the party. Manufacturing lost 1,000 jobs, and jobs in the information sector — newspapers, publishing and telecommunications — were flat month-over-month.

Part of the reason for San Diego Countys slightly elevated unemployment rate is a steady growth in the labor force, adults who either have a job or are actively looking for one, in the past few months. There are now 1.59 million people in the labor force. While that is a decrease of 12,100 from this time last year, it makes up for heavy losses to start 2024.

The countys workforce hit a peak of more than 1.6 million in March 2023, slowly building up after losing thousands during the pandemic. While the labor force has been yo-yoing for much of this year, it is on track to hit another peak if trends hold in 2025.

Wilson said one unique issue shes seen in recent months is younger workers losing out on jobs to more experienced workers who have decided to return the workforce after months, or longer, on unemployment.

Daniel Enemark, chief economist of the San Diego Regional Policy and Innovation Center, said the countys unemployment picture has been fairly unchanged since the summer. Like much of the nation, he said San Diego County was showing signs of a strong economy.

With both unemployment and inflation remaining fairly low, he said, this is more evidence that the Fed is achieving a soft landing.”

Enemark said San Diego Countys unemployment rate was closer to 4.6% when adjusted for seasonal swings. That compares to the seasonally adjusted national average of 4.1% and 5.4% in California.

On an annual basis, private education and health services have grown the most with 12,000 new jobs. The category has seen most of its growth in social assistance and ambulatory health care services over the last year.

Other sectors to grow were construction with 2,100 new jobs; government with 1,400 jobs; trade, transportation and utilities with 1,100 jobs, and leisure and hospitality (work in hotels, casinos, restaurants) with 800 jobs.

Information lost 1,200 jobs and professional and business services lost 1,600. Manufacturing lost the most jobs at 4,500. Growing manufacturing jobs in the U.S. is a priority of President-elect Donald Trump, who has proposed an aggressive tariff program that he says will increase stateside manufacturing.

On a national level, roughly 178,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in Trumps first term, according to a CBS News analysis, but much of that was blamed on the pandemic. The economy added around 137,000 new manufacturing jobs from February 2020 to September 2024. Experts have largely blamed globalization, not any administration, for the decrease in manufacturing.

The most job openings in San Diego County in October were for retail salespersons, according to state data that aggregates job postings during the month. There were 2,266 job postings for retail workers, followed by posts for registered nurses with 1,840, computer occupations with 1,094, first-line supervisors of retail workers with 1,082, and customer service representatives with 1,057.

The top employers, by job postings, were UC San Diego, Scripps Health, Apple, Intuit, Starbucks and General Atomics.

State officials do not seasonally adjust jobless rates for individual counties. Compared with other parts of California, San Diego County was in the middle of the pack with its unadjusted rate of 4.7%.

The rate was 6.1% in Los Angeles County, 4.1% in Orange County, 3.7% in San Francisco County, 4.1% in Santa Clara County, 5.4% in Santa Cruz County and 5.6% in Riverside County.