Santa Clarita’s jobless rate continued to tumble in October, falling to 7.3 percent from 7.6 percent in September. It stood at 8.2 percent just three months ago.

Los Angeles County saw its October jobless rate fall to 12.2 percent from 12.4 percent in September and 12.9 percent a year ago as all sectors posted gains except information services. The information sector includes motion picture producers and newspaper publishers, among others.

Public and private schools and universities led the way for the county in October. Local government added 8,100 jobs and state government  added 5,400, with education services counting for almost all of the government-sector growth.

Similarly, private education and health services added a net 7,600 jobs throughout the county, with colleges, universities and professional schools responsible for 7,200 of them.

Locally, College of the Canyons’ full-time faculty numbered 188 in October, unchanged from the prior month, but the college added one administrative position in October for a total of 84 and two classified and confidential positions for a total of 234.

In Los Angeles County, the federal government rounded out the government sector with 300 new positions in October.

Construction activity picked up in the county during October as 2,000 jobs were added, as follows: Construction of buildings, up 900; specialty trade contractors, up 800; civil engineering, up 300.

Within the trade sector, wholesale trade added 900 jobs, retail trade added 900, transportation and utilities added 300.

Miscellaneous professional services added another 900 jobs in the county, leisure and hospitality added 200, and financial services added 200.

The only month-over-month loser was information services, where 1,300 positions were eliminated. Mining and logging numbers were unchanged.

Los Angeles County posted year-over-year gains in professional support and waste services (up 7,300), private education (up 6,600), leisure and hospitality (up 6,200), private health care (up 5,100), motion picture and sound recording (up 4,900), food services (up 4,900), other information services (up 3,800), arts and entertainment (up 1,300) and manufacturing (up 200).

Losers since October 2010 were government (down 4,500), miscellaneous services (down 3,500), financial activities (down 2,900), trade-transportation-utilities (down 2,600) and construction (down 1,200).

California’s unemployment rate fell to 11.7 percent in October from 11.9 percent in September and 12.5 percent in October 2010.

The nation’s unemployment rate fell to 9 percent in October from 9.1 percent in September and 9.7 percent in October 2010.