Los Angeles County bosses added 145,400 workers last year as the local job market finished 2022 with employment at 99% of pre-pandemic December 2019.

My trusty spreadsheet, filled with state employment data, found Los Angeles County with 4.625 million workers in December after adding 145,400 in 12 months. Those hires were 53% slower than 2021’s 306,900 new workers. Pandemic era business restrictions cut 478,200 positions in 2020.

So three years of ups and downs in the coronavirus economy left the local job market with 25,900 fewer paychecks vs. December 2019, a time when nobody worried about a pandemic. Note that bosses in L.A. added 172,500 workers in the three years before the virus struck.

LA-Orange County home sales plummet 46% to record low

The hiring spree dropped joblessness. Los Angeles County’s unemployment rate finished 2022 at ended 2022 at 4.4% vs. a rate of 5.6% a year earlier, 11% at year-end 2020 and 4% in December 2019.

However, L.A.’s hiring turnabout was not equal by industry. Look at key local job categories, ranked by how much of pre-pandemic employment has been recovered at the end of 2022 …