“Bubble Watch” digs into trends that may indicate economic and/or housing market troubles ahead.

Buzz: Has it seemed like news of layoff notices is on the rise? Well, you’re not mistaken.

Source: California’s Employment Development Dept.

The trend

In the June quarter, 253 companies filed government-mandated “WARN Act” layoff notices impacting 18,875 employees. Over the past year, that’s 38% more planned cuts hitting 13% more workers.

The dissection

Let’s start by noting that counts of these filings by employers are by no means perfect indications of layoff trends.

This paperwork is done by employers with 75 or more employees with plans for job cuts — permanent or temporary — and relocations — 100-miles-plus — impacting 50 or more workers. These stats do not include all layoffs nor do they show what job-cut plans are actually completed.

All that said, it’s hard not to notice that in the past 12 months, 833 companies filed layoff notices impacting 72,700 employees. That’s 28% more layoffs over a year’s time involving 22% more workers.

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Other views

Look at what two other measures of job troubles tells us about the California employment market.

Initial unemployment claims, often a first step taken by the recently laid-off workers, show 515,203 worker requests for aid were filed in the second quarter. That’s down 3% over the past year and 11% below the five-year average.

Claims peaked mid-recession at 1.05 million and have been as low as 467,893 in the rebound. Note: Claims can under-represent layoffs in hot job markets as numerous workers are able to quickly find new work before they file for assistance.

Plus, there’s positive trends in one measure of California unemployment, the bureaucratically dubbed “U6” rate.

It’s a broader definition of joblessness than the often quoted “U3” unemployment measure because it includes some of the long-term unemployed plus the so-called underemployed folks.

The latest reading of this broader unemployment benchmark was 8.6% for the 12 months ended in June vs. 9.2% a year earlier and an 11.4% five-year average. This unemployment yardstick peaked at 22.1% mid-recession and was as low as 9.1% in the previous economic upswing.

How bubbly?

On a scale of zero bubbles (no bubble here) to five bubbles (five-alarm warning) … TWO-AND-A-HALF BUBBLES!

Layoff warnings are rising and there’s no way to spin that uptick as a good trend. Yet, if all 72,000 cuts announced in WARN Act notices in the past 12 months actually occurred, one must remember these layoffs are equal to less than a half-percent of the 17 million jobs statewide.