San Diego County’s jobless rate dropped in March, led by health care and education hiring.
The region’s unemployment rate was 4.3%, state labor officials said Friday, down from a revised 4.5% in February. That was lower than the California average of 5.2% and tied with the nationwide average of 4.3%.
Hiring in March was led by private education and health services, with most new jobs in nursing, social assistance and ambulatory services. The category added 3,300 jobs from February to March. The other big gainer was government, with 2,800 jobs, mostly in state-funded education.
Overall, it was a strong month with 8,100 new jobs with only two categories shedding positions — retail, down by 600, and manufacturing, down by 200. Two sectors known for job cuts were unchanged: Information (telecommunications, newspapers, publishing industry) and financial activities (real estate, insurance, investments).
Other sectors to add jobs were leisure and hospitality (work in hotels, casinos, restaurants), with 2,000 new positions; construction added 500; professional and business services (legal, scientific, waste management, architectural) with 200; and other services (laundry, maintenance, religious) with 100.
When adjusted for seasonal swings, San Diego County’s unemployment rate in March was 4.4%, according to Daniel Enemark, chief economist of the San Diego-based Policy and Innovation Center. That compares to the March 4.3% U.S. average jobless rate and 5.3% in California.
“Despite March’s growth in healthcare employment,” he said, “I’m still keeping my eye on the sector. It accounts for literally all employment growth in the region since 2022 and faces potential headwinds from AI-driven labor substitution and financial risks from looming federal insurance cutbacks.”
Who’s hiring?
Tech titan Apple led new job advertisements in March, with 83 new postings, according to state data that aggregates job postings during the month. The data does not distinguish between retail and office jobs.
It was followed by Scripps Health with 81, UC San Diego with 78, Marriott International with 70 and Qualcomm with 65. Monthly changes do not cover all San Diego County open positions, roughly 27,670, that can sometimes take a long time to fill.
San Diego had the most open advertisements, with 1,727. It was followed by El Cajon with 284, Chula Vista with 236, Carlsbad with 148, Escondido with 140 and Poway with 96.
The most in-demand local jobs were retail salespersons (1,595 job ads), followed by registered nurses (1,397 ads), home health and personal care aides (1,191 ads) and software developers (1,068 ads).
The largest employers in San Diego County are the U.S. Navy, UC San Diego, San Diego County, Sharp Healthcare, Scripps San Diego and Kaiser Permanente.
Employers in San Diego County may have more workers to choose from. The region’s labor force — adults who either have a job or are actively looking for one — was 1.67 million in March. That was the second highest in the state behind Los Angeles County’s 5.1 million labor force.
Other areas with large labor forces were Orange County, with 1.62 million, Riverside County with 1.2 million, and Santa Clara and San Bernardino counties with 1 million each.
The big picture
Over the 12 months, San Diego County has added 15,300 jobs. That’s not an earth-shaking amount, but higher than the last two years. In March 2025, the county added 7,500 jobs in a year; in March 2024, 14,500 jobs; and in March 2023, 50,100 jobs, as the region rebounded from the pandemic.
Private education and health services grew the most in the past year, up by 16,200 jobs. The biggest gains were in social assistance and ambulatory health care services.
Other growing sectors included leisure and hospitality, up by 7,100 jobs; professional and business services, with 3,000; other services, with 2,200; and financial services with 300.
Four sectors lost jobs. Government was down the most, losing 7,700 jobs, mostly due to a reduction of the federal workforce by the Trump administration. It was followed by trade, transportation and utilities (mostly retail), down by 2,000; construction, down by 1,500; manufacturing, down by 1,300; and information, down by 1,000.
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 4.3%.
The unemployment rate was 5.1% in Los Angeles County, 3.8% in Orange County, 3.7% in San Francisco County, 3.8% in Santa Clara County, 6.9% in Santa Cruz County and 5.1% in Riverside County.