San Luis Obispo County’s unemployment rate is on the decline, according to data released by Beacon Economics, a firm that provides economic analysis, consulting, and data services.

After the local unemployment rate increased steadily in the last half of 2010, it has started to decrease in the first months of 2011.

“This is excellent news for our community, but there are still a significant number of people and businesses struggling,” said Dave Garth, president/CEO of the San Luis Obispo Chamber of Commerce. “We hope this trend is the beginning of our local recovery. Fortunately, the local business community has proven itself to be a creative, energetic and progressive group, even in difficult times.”

SLO County’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate also decreased from 10 percent in February 2010 to 9.5 percent in February 2011.

The California Employment Development Department (EDD) released similar data for San Luis Obispo County, but it wasn’t seasonally adjusted. Seasonally adjusted data takes out the seasonal effect (normal annual occurrences such as Christmas, summer vacations, and weather patterns) and allows us to see the NET economic effect, said Brad Kemp, director of regional research for Beacon Economics.

It enables data users to see fluctuations better in a trend that are caused by unusual occurrences (i.e. a plant closure). Seasonally adjusted data is available at the statewide level and for Los Angeles, but not for every county within the state.

“Unless we compare the local non-seasonally adjusted data to the same data in previous years, there’s no way to understand whether the current changes have a good or bad effect,” Kemp said. “Unfortunately, the EDD (California Employment Development Department) doesn’t provide seasonally adjusted data for San Luis Obispo County. So we use their data to create the seasonally adjusted data we have available on our website.”

According to a recent special Tribune report focusing on wage trends in the county, the people hurt most locally in the last few years have been those at the bottom.

The U.S. unemployment rate also decreased in February, to 8.9 percent. In February 2010, the unemployment rate in California was 12.4 percent, according to data released last week by the EDD from two separate surveys.

Non-farm jobs in California totaled 14,055,900 in February, an increase of 96,500 jobs over the month, according to a survey of businesses that is larger and less variable statistically. The survey of 42,000 California businesses measures jobs in the economy. The year-over-year change (February 2010 to February 2011) shows an increase of 196,300 jobs (up 1.4 percent).

The federal survey of households, done with a smaller sample than the survey of employers, shows an increase in the number of employed people. It estimates the number of Californians holding jobs in February was 15,917,000, an increase of 12,000 from January, but down 36,000 from the employment total in February of last year.

The number of people unemployed in California was 2,202,000 – down by 44,000 over the month, and down by 49,000 compared with February of last year.

Ten categories (mining and logging; construction; manufacturing; trade, transportation and utilities; information; financial activities; professional and business services; educational and health services; leisure and hospitality; and other services) added jobs over the month, gaining 97,700 jobs. Professional and business services posted the largest increase over the month, adding 39,700 jobs. One category, government, reported job declines this month, down 1,200 jobs.