Golden State Today

California's unemployment rate hit 6.5% among residents aged 16 and 65 years old in 2021. That's 1,303,741 people out of the 39,455,353 living in California at the time, according to data U.S. Census Bureau data obtained on Oct. 26, 2023.

The unemployment rate in California has increased compared to the 6.1% registered in 2020.

The percentage of people unemployed in California was greater than the national unemployment rate of 5.5%.

Of the 18,825,421 people who had a job during that time, 148,700 were employed in the Armed Forces and 18,676,721 belonged to the civilian labor force.

Employment status	Number of people	Percentage of population
Unemployed	1,303,741	6.5%
Employed	18,825,421	93.5%
Employed in civilian labor force	18,676,721	92.8%
Employed in armed forces	148,700	0.7%