San Diego’s jobless rate fell in February, led by hiring in the typically high-paying professional and business services sector.
The region’s unemployment rate was 4.5%, state labor officials said Friday, down from a revised 4.7% in January. That compares to California’s average 5.5% rate and 4.7% for the nation.
San Diego County added 2,200 jobs in professional and business services, which includes work in scientific, management and architectural fields. Much of the gains were in management, related to the administration of employment services, building management and support services across multiple industries.
Hiring in technical and scientific fields only made up 400 new positions, but represented a reversal after months of job losses.
Management jobs were the highest paying San Diego County sector with an average hourly rate of $82.87, said the state’s Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey from early 2025. However, wages can vary based on industry. For instance, professional service managers were earning $35.17 an hour compared to $138 an hour for chief executives.
Other job gains in February were in leisure and hospitality (work in hotels, casinos, bars and restaurants) with 2,000 new positions. It was followed by government (mainly education) with 400; other services (laundry, maintenance, religious), also with 400; and financial activities (real estate, insurance, investments) with 200.
Job losses were in trade, transportation and utilities, which shed 1,900 positions. Work in the field includes warehousing and retail and typically sees a reduction after the holiday season. Other losses were in construction, down by 200, and information (telecommunications, newspapers, publishing industry) down by 100.
When adjusted for seasonal swings, San Diego County’s unemployment rate in February was 4.5%, according to Daniel Enemark, chief economist of the San Diego-based Policy and Innovation Center. That compares to the February 4.4% U.S. average jobless rate and 5.4% in California.
Alan Gin, economist at the University of San Diego, said it was an encouraging sign to see a pickup in hiring for professional and business services. Yet he said one month of data was not enough to declare a trend.
Gin said San Diego hiring patterns seemed to follow lackluster growth throughout the nation.
“The unemployment rate remains kind of high and still above the national rate,” he said. “We’re still in a holding pattern in the labor market. Things are not falling off a cliff, but we’re not seeing a lot of major growth either.”
Who’s hiring?
Tech giant Qualcomm had the most open job postings in February with 672, said state data that aggregates job postings during the month.
Other big employers looking for workers included UC San Diego with 642 job ads; General Atomics with 542; Apple with 503 and Scripps Health with 459. All five companies had increased the number of job ads from the previous month.
The most in-demand local jobs were retail salespersons (1,392 job ads), followed by home health and personal care aides (1,315 ads), registered nurses (1,297 ads) and software developers (1,011 ads).
Top employers in the San Diego metro, overall and not just new job ads, are the U.S. Navy, UC San Diego, San Diego County, Sharp Healthcare, Scripps San Diego and Kaiser Permanente, said county data.
Kevin Carroll, executive director of industry trade group Tech San Diego, said job openings at technology firms — like Qualcomm — can stay open for a long time as they are looking for the right candidate. He said many data science and engineering jobs related to artificial intelligence are specialized and take time to find the right person.
“With AI, you’d think there’d be less jobs,” he said, “but as they are looking to spin up, you are going to see the Qualcomms of the world are going to be hiring.”
How San Diego compares
Job seekers looking to move to California have more options north of San Diego.
The San Diego metropolitan area, which includes all of San Diego County, had 46,338 job postings in February, the fourth-highest in the state. Los Angeles metro had the most with 109,096 job ads, followed by San Jose metro with 48,407 and Orange County with 47,943.
Within California, San Diego had the most new monthly job postings of any city, 1,836, said state data. It was followed by Los Angeles with 1,624 job ads and 1,076 in San Francisco. The California Employment Development Department breaks this data down by city, rather than metro area. It is designed to show the latest hiring trends, as opposed to open positions that may have been listed for months.
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 4.5%.
The unemployment rate was 5.6% in Los Angeles County, 4% in Orange County, 3.9% in San Francisco County, 4.1% in Santa Clara County, 7.2% in Santa Cruz County and 5.4% in Riverside County.
The big picture
On an annual basis, San Diego County added 7,900 new jobs, but there were winners and losers across sectors.
Private education and health services, which include nursing, social assistance, private schools and universities, added 12,500 new positions annually — much higher than any other category.
Other sectors to gain jobs were leisure and hospitality, with 7,000; other services with 2,800; and professional and business services with 1,900. The financial activities sector was the only industry unchanged year over year.
The biggest loss was in government, down by 7,700, and almost entirely the result of federal job reductions instituted by the Trump administration. It was followed by construction, down by 3,200; trade, transportation and utilities, down 2,700; information, down 1,300; manufacturing, also down by 1,300; and 100 fewer farm jobs.
An annual job gain of 7,900 in February compares to 9,600 at this time last year and 13,700 in 2024.
“We need to double (job gains) to make any sort of dent in the unemployment rate,” said Gin, the economist at the University of San Diego. “It’s good that it’s positive, but it’s not great.”
He said job gains seemed to indicate a restructuring of the economy around an aging population. Gin noted the biggest job gains were in health care, not in sectors that are seen as bellwethers of economic growth.
“Unfortunately, we’re getting away from construction and manufacturing,” he said, “which are typically key sectors to indicate economic growth. They are good-paying jobs and a signal of a local economy with money flowing into the region.”