Santa Clarita’s unemployment rate held steady in February after climbing to 7.4 percent in January.

The 0.3-percent uptick from December’s 7.1-percent rate was attributed primarily to the loss of seasonal retail jobs after the December holidays.

Although always higher than Santa Clarita, the whole of Los Angeles County didn’t see the same upswing. The county’s jobless rate has stood at 11.8 percent since December.

Meanwhile, the state and nation’s unemployment rate actually improved over that time. California joblessness fell to 10.9 percent in January from 11.1 percent in December and remained flat in February. The U.S. jobless rate held at 8.3 percent in February after falling to that level in January from 8.5 percent in December.

Jason Crawford, the city of Santa Clarita’s economic development manager, noted that the city’s 7.4 jobless rate represents a 0.2-point improvement on the year. (The larger jurisdictions have seen year-over-year improvement, as well.)

“What is more encouraging” Crawford said, “are the numbers behind the unemployment percentage, that show that 600 more Santa Clarita residents found jobs from January to February.  We also had the same number of residents, 600, start looking for work, which is why the percentage stayed steady.  This could be people who had given up looking for work and are now seeing the economy slowly get better and have begun to look for work again.”

Job hunters should familiarize themselves the free services offered by the city and College of the Canyons at the WorkSource Center (www.SCWorkSource.com), Crawford said.

Los Angeles County Snapshot

Across Los Angeles County, the movie industry added the most jobs in February (10,400).

Private education expanded by 7,700 jobs in Los Angeles County during February, especially colleges and trade schools.

The county saw professional services, travel and hotels, government, manufacturing, construction and financial services post modest gains (in that order), while retail trade slashed 6,100 jobs from payrolls, representing 77 percent of the job losses. Wholesale trade, transportation and miscellaneous services also trimmed back a bit.