County Unemployment Drops

Santa Barbara County’s unemployment rate for August 2012 dropped to 7.6 percent from July’s 7.9 percent, the Workforce Investment Board (WIB) announced this week. In August 2011, the county had a 9 percent unemployment rate. Statewide, the August 2012 number shrunk slightly to 10.6 percent from 10.7 percent the previous month. Area occupations with the fastest job growth, the WIB said, are information security analysts, web developers, and computer network architects, along with cardiovascular technicians and technologists.