Santa Clarita’s July unemployment rate was 7.3 percent, up 0.5 percent from 6.8 percent in June, primarily reflecting the number of teachers who took the summer off.

Jason Crawford, the city’s economic development manager, said July jobless figures are always higher than June because teachers are counted among the unemployed during the summer months. Across Los Angeles County, the biggest job losses in July were in public education (down 27,600 jobs), while there were 1,500 fewer positions in private education.

Santa Clarita’s rate as reported by the state Employment Development Department is an unadjusted rate – meaning summer vacation for teachers isn’t taken into account, as it is with larger jurisdictions such as the county, state and nation.

Los Angeles County’s seasonally adjusted rate – the number that’s commonly reported – was 11.2 in July, unchanged from June. But the county’s unadjusted rate was 11.9 percent in July, up 0.8 percent from June.

The seasonally adjusted rate for the state was also unchanged at 10.7 percent, while the nation’s seasonally adjusted rate rose slightly to 8.3 percent in July from 8.2 percent in June.

The state doesn’t calculate a comparable seasonally adjusted rate for Santa Clarita.

“The good news is that we’re about a point better than we were a year ago,” Crawford said.

Santa Clarita’s unadjusted rate for July 2011 was 8.2 percent.

Job-loss leaders across Los Angeles County in July were the health care and social assistance subsector (down 3,700 jobs), miscellaneous services (down 2,100) and the motion picture and sound recording business (down 1,900).

Also down were trade, transportation and utilities (1,100), construction (700), leisure and hospitality (100), and manufacturing (100).

One bright spot was in real estate, where 800 positions were added across the county. Real estate sales typically heat up during the summer.

But those 800 job gains were offset by equal losses in professional, scientific and technical services.