Employment, help-wanted stats keep business outlook pessimistic.

Los Angeles County employment numbers continue to be soft in Econowatch, meaning that red flags will stay up for retailers, real estate agents and others in the Southland.

The number of people with jobs in Los Angeles County was 4.29 million in November, off 0.9 percent from November a year ago, according to the state Employment Development Department.

That means there are fewer people with paychecks to spend at cash registers, on homes, and on local entertainment.

Nor is the job outlook bright: The help-wanted index for November was 84, off from 110 in November a year ago, according to the Conference Board, a New York-based business research house. The index hit a 20-year low of 79 in September.

In terms of getting a job, this recession is harder on Angelenos than the 1982 downturn. The lowest the help-wanted index sank in 1982 was 88.

Perhaps not surprisingly, given the employment figures, retail sales in the county in October were off 6.4 percent from October a year ago, at $5.44 billion. After adjustment for inflation, retail sales in the month were off nearly 10 percent from the 12-month earlier period.

In another way of looking at it, retailers in Los Angeles County took in $369 million less in October 1991 than 12 months earlier.

Foreclosure volume, while high, has not been increasing in recent months, perhaps suggesting that foreclosures have crested for this recession -- good news for lenders and borrowers both.

In other news, real estate statistics are mixed in Econowatch this week.

Showing continued resilience are Los Angeles County single-family house prices, which came in at a median of $195,000 in November, virtually unchanged from a year earlier. On a per-square-foot basis, home prices were $148.15 for November, actually up a bit from 12 months earlier.

On a per-square-foot basis, house prices peaked in July of 1989 at $157.87. Since then prices have not kept up with inflation, but no wholesale collapse of prices has happened, as predicted in Eastern press.

However, despite lower interest rates, homes sales in the county did fall in November, to 3,967, off 9.8 percent from October and off 11.5 percent from a year ago.

Real estate foreclosure volume in Los Angeles County, at $162.3 million in November, remains at about triple last year's rate.

In the hotel industry, occupancy rates remained low in October, at 66.7 percent.