However, once one 'deseasonalizes' the data, in fact, employment is down: peaked in July, down in August, down further in September.
This trend is early, and could reverse itself: over Dec. '05-Feb. '06, there was a peak followed by two months of declines. However, such was reversed by increases in employment in subsequent months.
But, if this continues, it may not be a very Merry Christmas here in San Diego.
Technical note — I developed my seasonality factors via Minitab's Time Series Decomposition routine, using monthly employment data for San Diego (MSA, total nonfarm) over Jan. '88 – Aug. '06.
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