More locally, Los Angeles County shed more than 62,000 jobs in January although the state’s unemployment rate edged down to 7.9 percent from 8 percent the previous month and 8.8 percent a year earlier.
The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment aid last week rose to its highest level since May, but economists dismissed the increase as weather-related and said the jobs market remained solid.
The U.S. economy lost more than 2.7 million jobs between the middle of December and the middle of January, but the big news from the January jobs report was that the economy added 275,000 jobs during the same period. . . reporting a statistically adjusted figure as if it were original data is a mistake, and a significant distortion of reality that only adds to public distrust of the government and the media. People know that jobs were scarcer in January than in February, even if the government told them the opposite.
Economic activity in the Twelfth District continued to improve moderately during the reporting period of early January through mid-February. Overall price inflation remained modest, while wage inflation was moderate. Retail sales and demand for business and consumer services increased moderately. Overall manufacturing activity picked up, while agricultural conditions were mixed. Real estate activity advanced, mainly in the multifamily construction sector. Lending activity increased modestly.
Payroll processor ADP said Wednesday that companies added 212,000 jobs last month, a solid gain, though down from 250,000 in the previous month. January’s figure was revised up from 213,000.
Labor-force participation—the percentage of the population that is looking for work or employed—is now lower than at the end of the recession. There is a lot of room to grow. And the growth of productivity—the amount of goods and services produced per worker-hour—has hovered around 1% for the past five years, less than half the nearly 2.5% average of the previous 20 years. There is room for acceleration there, too.
The U.S. economy continued to expand across most of the country at the start of the year amid broad-based hiring and rising consumer spending, according to the Federal Reserve’s latest survey of regional economic conditions.
The UC system will not expand enrollment of California freshmen and transfer students in the fall unless more state revenues are appropriated and will cap enrollment of out-of-state students at UCLA and UC Berkeley, UC President Janet Napolitano said Tuesday..
Assemblyman Mike Gatto has proposed legislation that would start a process for a new University of California campus to specialize in technology fields. The campus is envisioned as the UC equivalent of the private California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
The announcement came from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which operates a system of reservoirs and canals that make up the Central Valley Project. It mirrors a similar announcement last year that led to hundreds of thousands of farm acres being fallowed.
Although couched in dense education jargon, the letter essentially accuses WestEd of ignoring the uniform achievement standards it says state law requires in favor of squishier measures, and offers an alternative version.
While progress in the national and state economies has boosted confidence, optimism on the part of both consumers and businesses is still tempered by caution. Following a 2.2% increase in 2014, nonfarm jobs are expected to increase by 2.2% again in 2015, slowing slightly to 2.1% in 2016. The unemployment rate will fall from 7.5% in 2014 to 6.7% this year and 6.3% in 2016. With continued improvement in the labor market, both personal income and total taxable sales should increase by four percent this year, accelerating to six percent in 2016.
Region is on track to greet 50 million visitors a year, and these visitors spent more than $18 billion in our economy this year. At the same time, the hospitality and tourism industry also serves our 10 million local residents. Accordingly, the report delineates the two separate components (traded versus local-serving), which are very different in terms of their composition, workforce needs, intermediate purchases and economic impacts — distinctions that have clear implications for how policymakers and stakeholders formulate programs to encourage not only more jobs but also better-paying jobs.
Los Angeles County should add a total of 150,000 payroll jobs over the course of this year and next, bringing employment to record levels, according to the forecast from the LAEDC’s Kyser Center for Economic Research. What’s more, the unemployment rate should dip to 6.6 percent by the end of next year, its lowest level in eight years.
At issue are California’s rigid overtime rules, which require companies to pay hourly employees time-and-one-half not only for time worked in excess of 40 hours a week — but for time worked beyond eight hours each day. As the state’s Division of Labor Standards Enforcement declares, “Eight hours of work constitutes a day’s work … .” But what works in the view of a Sacramento bureaucracy isn’t necessarily what works for others.