O.C. Unemployment Rate Inches Up to 6% : Labor: Local manufacturing, finance, insurance, real estate and retail jobs are cut. National and state jobless rolls shrink.

SANTA ANA — In a cheerless report Friday, the state employment department said Orange County’s jobless rate edged up to 6% in September from 5.9% in August, with several key sectors showing job losses.

By contrast, unemployment rates for the nation, California and Los Angeles County all fell significantly in September from August.

Overall, Orange County employers added 5,400 jobs to local payrolls last month, all of it seasonal as an army of teachers and other school employees returned to work. But a regional decline in employment in manufacturing, retail trade, finance and real estate lifted the county’s jobless rate nonetheless.

The job report from the state Employment Development Department provided more sobering news about an economy whose revival has been dimmed somewhat by recent announcements of mass layoffs at Hughes Aircraft and AST Research.

“All of us would like to see a recovery in Orange County, but the numbers (show) that we have a difficult period ahead,” said Anil Puri, chairman of Cal State Fullerton’s economics department. “It’s going to be a struggle to generate jobs in the future.”

In September, 79,300 Orange County residents were without jobs while 1.25 million people who live in the county were working, the state employment department reported.

Esmael Adibi, director of Chapman’s College Center for Economic Research, agreed that the latest jobs report was not uplifting. But he said that Orange County’s economy is still “moving in the right direction.” The loss of non-seasonal jobs in industries like manufacturing was smaller than in past months, he said. And missing from the state’s monthly survey are job gains made by many local mom-and-pop businesses--which aren’t counted in the tally of local employment.

One encouraging sign in Friday’s report is that Orange County’s jobless rate for September was down more than one full percentage point from the 7.1% reported in September, 1993.

Total civilian employment in the county last month was up 38,700 from a year earlier, but Adibi said the increase largely reflects the surge in self-employed workers--people who operate their own businesses and work as free-lancers, for example.

While a spurt of self-employed workers is common in the early stages of a recovery, economists like Adibi are waiting for hiring by companies--a more reliable indicator of a healthy economy. And that doesn’t appear to be happening yet.

The county’s non-farm payroll employment--which excludes the self-employed and agriculture workers--was down 1,000 in September from a year earlier.

“Employers are still hesitant to go out and hire employees,” Adibi said.

The latest payroll data, based on reports from generally larger companies, showed that manufacturing employment in the county fell by 300 in September from August. The finance, insurance and real estate industries shed 200 jobs, and retail trade overall employment dropped by 400.

In seasonal changes, the services sector lost 1,200 from August to September, mostly because of the job cuts in the amusement industry.

Meanwhile, local government added 7,100 to its payroll as Orange County schools and universities reopened. Construction employment was up by 100 in the county in September from August.

While analysts expect payroll employment to pick up slowly in Orange County, they also noted that large layoffs announced recently by Hughes and AST will slow the recovery. Combined, those two companies plan to shed more than 6,000 jobs based in Orange County, many of them high-paying technical work.

(Orange County Edition, A1) Jobless Jump

Orange County’s unemployment rate increased marginally in September to 6.0%. That rate was up slightly from August’s 5.9%.

Source: Employment Development Department