Despite this fall in residents, though, the paper reports between 2009 and 2010, the total population of Orange County still grew 28,190, mainly due to 12,223 people from foreign countries moving into the area.
The Register said the Department of Finance based the analysis on statistics like driver license address changes, birth and death records, tax return data, medicare enrollment and immigration reports.
Bill Watkins, director of the Center for Economic Research and Forecasting at California Lutheran University, told the Register he thinks these departures from Orange County and the rest of California is due to the state's above-average unemployment rate and the $28 billion state budget deficit.
The Department of Finance's new population data shows that since the national census on April 1, 2000, California has grown by nearly 5 million for an overall growth rate of 14.6 percent. The state population reportedly increased with 5.6 million births, 1.8 million foreign immigrants and 33,000 domestic migrants since then. In contrast, there were 2.4 million deaths reported in the state between 2000 and 2010.
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