Recession Still Lingers for Oxnard Job-Seekers

A tragic shooting rampage remains fresh in the memories of those who work at the state unemployment office in Oxnard, but a lackluster job market has kept the facility’s staff as busy as ever.

For job-seekers on the Oxnard Plain, the recession still lingers, reports Avelina Villalobos, manager of the state Employment Development Department office on C Street.

“We’re still seeing cutbacks in manufacturing and elsewhere,” she says. “And, of course, there are the cyclical layoffs in agriculture. Between them, they’ve pretty much kept employment in this area at recession level.”

Even two new retail centers--Oxnard Factory Outlet and Shopping at the Rose, the latter anchored by a Wal-Mart store--haven’t provided enough jobs to offset those lost in manufacturing and farming, she added.

Still, Villalobos believes a determined individual can land a decent job. “We help people file for unemployment insurance, but we also get them job leads. We tell them: ‘If you stay with it, you’ll find a job.’ ”

Villalobos and her staff were propelled into the spotlight last December when an unemployed computer engineer shot and killed three people inside the building. The man later killed a fourth person, a police officer, before being shot dead in Ventura, outside another unemployment office.

The Oxnard facility was closed for a few days, then reopened with a new security system. Next March, it’s scheduled to be moved to a former market on Ventura Road.

Villalobos hopes jobless people will be easier to place by then, but she isn’t sure.

Ventura County’s jobless rate rose two percentage points in July, reaching 9.3% of the work force. The biggest setback was the loss of 6,300 seasonal farm jobs, affecting more than one in every four of the county’s agricultural workers.

Seasonal school layoffs also boosted the jobless rate, but hiring increased in construction, the wholesale trades and a few other fields.

Most of the thousands of farm layoffs were centered in the region served by the Oxnard jobs office. “It’s seasonal work that involves harvesting strawberries, celery, lettuce and other row crops,” Villalobos said.

“Some of the people will be rehired for a relatively short planting season in October and November, but we won’t return to peak employment in the fields until the next harvest starts in April and May.”

By then, Villalobos hopes, things will be looking up for non-farm employment too.