Santa Barbara County added jobs and kept per capita income above California’s in 2025, while a faster-growing labor force pushed unemployment higher.

Santa Barbara County’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose from 4.43% in January 2025 to 4.55% in January 2026. Over the same period, the county’s seasonally adjusted payroll employment grew by 438 jobs to 215,910, while the labor force expanded by 779 to 226,271. More people entered the workforce than the county absorbed into jobs, lifting the unemployment rate even as employers continued hiring.

At the metropolitan level, the picture is similar but the magnitudes are larger. The Santa Maria-Santa Barbara Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), the federal statistical area used to group the county’s cities for labor reporting, added 3,213 nonfarm payroll jobs over the year to January 2026, a 1.5% increase. The MSA labor force grew faster, at 1.8%, lifting the MSA unemployment rate from 4.5% to 4.8%.

The county-level rate peaked at 5.0% in July 2025 before easing to 4.55% by year-end. The midyear loosening has partly reversed.

Health Care and Social Assistance added 900 jobs in the Santa Maria-Santa Barbara MSA over the year to January 2026, rising to 30,300 and accounting for 16.0% of total nonfarm employment. It was the single largest source of net job growth in any sector.

Federal Government employment in the MSA fell from 4,000 to 3,200 over the same period, a loss of 800 jobs or 20%. It was the steepest contraction of any sector tracked. Federal Government accounts for 1.7% of MSA employment, so the dollar effect on the headline number was modest. The 20% decline was large enough to offset most of the health care gain in net job terms.

Other large sectors held steady or moved by small amounts. Manufacturing was essentially flat at 12,400. Construction declined 1.9% to 10,100. Professional and Business Services rose 3.2% to 24,100. Leisure and Hospitality rose 1.2% to 29,100. The 2025 expansion rested on health care growth offset by federal contraction.

The unemployment rate within Santa Barbara County ranged from 3.1% in Goleta to 9.3% in Santa Maria in January 2026. Santa Barbara city sat at 3.2%. Lompoc sat at 5.9%. Santa Maria and Lompoc are North County cities. Goleta and Santa Barbara are South Coast.

The spread widened slightly over the year. Santa Maria minus Santa Barbara city was 5.8 percentage points in January 2025. In January 2026, it was 6.1 points. The same shape held in 2024 and 2023.

City-level data is not seasonally adjusted. Santa Maria’s rate ranged from 4.9% in May 2025 to 9.3% in January 2026 over the past year, a wider swing than Santa Barbara’s 2.9% to 4.0%, consistent with North County’s heavier agricultural employment base.

Five occupational groups in the Santa Maria-Santa Barbara MSA carry median hourly wages below $20: Food Preparation and Serving at $17.66 (23,070 jobs), Personal Care and Service at $17.71 (4,680 jobs), Farming, Fishing, and Forestry at $17.96 (13,200 jobs), Healthcare Support at $18.45 (10,210 jobs), and Building and Grounds Cleaning at $18.77 (8,070 jobs). Combined, these five groups employ 59,230 workers, or 29% of total MSA occupational employment.

For context, the all-occupations median hourly wage in the MSA was $24.15 in May 2024 (the latest available reporting year), with a mean of $34.26 across 201,750 jobs. The five low-wage groups above pay below the median; the typical MSA worker earns more than them but less than the mean.

The two highest-earning groups, Healthcare Practitioners and Technical ($54.03 median, 10,410 jobs) and Management ($60.84 median, 13,210 jobs), account for 11.7% of MSA jobs. Healthcare Practitioners pay roughly 2.9 times what Healthcare Support pays, both within the county’s largest employment industry.

Five occupational groups in the Santa Maria-Santa Barbara MSA pay mean annual wages above $120,000: Management at $144,040 (13,210 workers), Legal at $137,870 (1,130 workers), Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations at $130,710 (10,410 workers), Computer and Mathematical Occupations at $130,650 (6,380 workers), and Architecture and Engineering Occupations at $121,550 (3,700 workers). Combined, these five groups employ 34,830 workers, or 17.3% of total MSA occupational employment.

The high-wage tier (17.3% of MSA jobs) sits at the opposite end of the wage distribution from the low-wage tier (29% of MSA jobs) described above. The middle 54% of workers earn between the two extremes.

Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations (10,410 jobs at $130,710 mean annual wage) make up roughly 5.2% of MSA employment, the largest single high-wage category. The narrowness of the top tier matters for local jumbo-mortgage demand, professional-services demand, and high-end housing absorption. Roughly one in six MSA workers earn the income levels that anchor those markets.

Santa Barbara County’s per capita personal income (PCPI), which divides total personal income by population, reached $88,347 in 2024. That topped California ($86,232), Ventura County ($82,558), San Luis Obispo County ($77,564), and the United States ($73,204).

The county’s PCPI grew 5.8% in 2024 (from $83,529), and 41.6% cumulatively since 2019 (from $62,413). California grew 34.3% over the same five-year span. The county widened its income lead over the state.

Total personal income for the county was $39.27 billion in 2024, up 6.0% from 2023. Population was 444,500, up 0.2%. Income growth came from earnings, investment returns, and transfer payments rather than from population change.

Per capita personal income includes wages, business income, investment returns, and transfer payments. The county’s reading reflects all of these. Median hourly wage, as shown in the occupational data above, tells a different story about the typical worker.

In 2024, Santa Barbara County’s per capita personal income was $88,347, compared with $73,204 for the United States, a lead of $15,143 per resident. A decade earlier in 2014, the county’s PCPI was $51,453 against $46,289 nationally, a lead of $5,164. The dollar gap has nearly tripled over the decade.

The widening reflects faster income growth in the county than nationally. Santa Barbara County PCPI grew 71.7% from 2014 to 2024, against U.S. growth of 58.1% over the same period. Compounded annually, that is roughly 5.6% per year for the county versus 4.7% for the country, a difference that accumulates substantially over a decade.

Part of the divergence is a coastal-California phenomenon, with high-wage professional employment and significant investment-income flows in coastal counties pulling ahead of national trends. Part is Santa Barbara County-specific: the county’s 2024 PCPI of $88,347 exceeds California’s overall ($86,232), so the county outperforms even within the state.

PCPI includes wages, business income, investment returns, and transfer payments. The county’s high reading reflects a combination of high-wage professional employment, an older homeowner population with accumulated wealth, and significant property-based income flows from residential and commercial real estate. Institutional readers comparing tri-county portfolios to national portfolios should adjust nominal income figures for cost of living, which in Santa Barbara County is among the highest in the country.