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On the macro level, California is finally coming out of the Great Recession, but on a micro level, this recovery is precariously balanced on the shoulders of one region. If something were to happen to the Silicon Valley-Bay Area region, the Golden State currently has no Plan B. This isn’t meant as a critique of the other regions of California, but rather a critique of how Sacramento has largely been blinded by the macro-level data to the detriment of exploring ways to spur growth in a more diversified manner.

The University of California is being pressed by Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and a long list of high-powered CEOs to count computer science as a math course in deciding whether applicants meet its minimum standards to be considered for admission.

An economic development agency chaired by State Treasurer John Chiang on Tuesday approved nearly $40 million worth of sales tax exclusions for California’s leading electric vehicle maker and a fast-growing space satellite manufacturer. . . The financial assistance program, which frees companies from paying sales-and-use tax on some purchases, is positioning California to reap an employment bonanza by luring both start-up and mature car and aerospace companies back to the state, said Chiang.

In 2013, the latest year for which comprehensive data are available, California ranked fifth among the states in creation of new businesses, fourth in job creation from new businesses and fourth in total job creation.

The State of California added 26,700 private sector jobs during the month of November, according to the ADP Regional Employment Report . . .

The report’s list of top states for net job creation in 2013 ranks Delaware first, with a job creation rate of 6.4 percent. North Dakota was second with a rate of 4.3 percent, followed by Montana (4.1 percent), California (4 percent) and Idaho (3.8 percent).

The Every Student Succeeds Act replaces the No Child Left Behind law that former President George W. Bush persuaded Congress to enact and state and local education officials intensely disliked as being too simplistic and inflexible in rating schools only on academic test results. . . In continuing to require officials to identify low-performing schools, the federal law also may rescue another aspect of the accountability process that the education establishment dislikes – the “parent trigger” law that allows parents to intervene when a school is failing, even seizing control and converting it to a charter.

Of manufacturers planning to add production capacity over the next five years for goods consumed in the U.S., more plan to add that capacity in the U.S. than in any other country—a sharp reversal since as recently as two years ago. And a rising percentage of U.S.-based executives at the manufacturers say they are already in the process of reshoring production work from China. These are among the findings of new research released today by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) will make the labor supply, measured as the total compensation paid to workers, 0.86 percent smaller in 2025 than it would have been in the absence of that law, the Congressional Budget Office estimates. Three-quarters of that decline will occur because of health insurance expansions, which raise effective tax rates on earnings from labor—for instance, by phasing out health insurance subsidies as people’s income rises—and thus reduce the amount of labor that workers choose to supply. The labor force is projected to be about 2 million full-time-equivalent workers smaller in 2025 under the ACA than it would have been otherwise. Those estimates were based mainly on CBO’s calculations of the effects of the law’s major components on marginal and average tax rates and on the agency’s analysis of research about the change in the labor supply resulting from a change in tax rates. For components of the law that were difficult to express in terms of changes in tax rates, CBO based its estimates on a review of the available literature about similar policy changes.

Since 1990 Los Angeles County has added a paltry 34,000 jobs while its population has grown 1.2 million. In contrast, the Bay Area, which added roughly the same number of people during the same time, gained a net 500,000 jobs, mostly in the suburbs. . . The problem now, however, are the factors in L.A. that drive industry away, such as ultra-high electricity prices and a high level of regulation. Even amidst the recent industrial boom in many other parts of the country, Los Angeles has continued to lose manufacturing jobs; Los Angeles’ industrial job count stands at 363,900, still the largest number in the nation, but down sharply from 900,000 just a decade ago. . . Today San Francisco and its immediate environs, despite its much smaller population, is home to virtually every powerful politician in the state: both its U.S. Senators, the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor and the Attorney General. Not surprisingly, state policies on everything from greenhouse gases, urban density and transit to social issues follows lines that originate in, and largely benefit, San Francisco.

Chapman University in Orange said Orange County employment in five key industry sectors remains “well below” prerecession levels and that payrolls will grow by 2.5% next year after finishing 2015 up 3.2%.

The San Francisco Bay Area is an economic powerhouse. The region’s innovation industries, from high tech to biotech, helped lead California out of the Great Recession. We are near full employment in some areas, and are responsible for 53.5 percent of the state’s net job growth since 2007. And while we are home to just 17 percent of the state’s population, we pay 36 percent of total state personal income taxes at a level per capital more than double the statewide average.

The Milwaukee staffing giant’s quarterly survey of employers in Los Angeles and Orange counties found that 15 percent plan to increase staff, 6 percent plan layoffs and 78 percent plan to keep staffing levels constant.

The U.S. economy posted another month of sturdy job growth in November, paving the way for the Federal Reserve to raise short-term interest rates for the first time in a decade.

The total workforce will shrink by just under 1 percent as a result of changes in worker participation because of the new coverage expansions, mandates and changes in tax rates, according to a 22-page report released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).