Developers of an NFL stadium in Inglewood have promised hundreds of millions of dollars in economic activity, but economists largely believe that the economic impact of sports stadiums is miniscule, KPCC reports. A 2003 analysis on Staples Center commissioned by the Los Angeles City Controller found that economic activity in Inglewood actually increased when the Lakers left town.
A flood of new TV shows could be filmed in Los Angeles this summer under new incentives being rushed through by the California Film Commission, which voted Thursday to try and speed up implementation of the television regulations in the state’s new production credit program . . .
Why isn’t there a national conversation about the West Coast port slowdown? That’s exactly what Peter Friedmann, executive director of the Agriculture Transportation Coalition, wants to know.
As a result, companies affected by the slow ports are finding ways to import their product without using West Coast ports, including the ports of Seattle and Tacoma. In California, agriculture groups have warned of long-term economic damage if the slowdowns persist.
Shipping companies said they will stop unloading ships at West Coast ports for four of the next five days because they don’t want to pay overtime to workers they allege have deliberately slowed operations.
California has many built-in advantages – including but not limited to its climate, natural resources, diverse population, and university system, but California’s setbacks, such as its high tax regime, its volatile budget, its high cost of living, and its burdensome regulatory environment, are increasingly overshadowing them. When Californians celebrate the overall rising of the tide, they ignore the boats left behind. It is time for Governor Brown and other California leaders to start pushing a growth agenda to ensure JFK’s words hold true.
A months-long stalemate in contract talks between the Pacific Maritime Association and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, both based in San Francisco, has clogged major ports in California and is having a negative economic impact on Central Valley growers and other Northern California businesses such as Devine Intermodal.
U.S. nonfarm payrolls grew by a seasonally adjusted 257,000 jobs in January, the Labor Department said Friday. And job creation was far stronger in prior months than previously thought, with the government raising its estimates of new jobs in November and December by a combined 147,000. November’s reading of 423,000 jobs added marked the strongest month of private-sector hiring since 1997.
The state is arguing it has the right to impose a contract on a group of Fresno-area farm workers — but the workers have no right to even attend the hearings in which that contract is hammered out. This is one “Alice in Wonderland” scenario in a slow moving and bureaucratic labor battle that pits workers against a union.
San Jose’s metro area leads the U.S. as an advanced-industries hub, but the crucial expansion and improved competitiveness of this high-tech workforce could be challenging, the Brookings Institution says in a new report.
But there was wide variation across the state. Areas such as Stockton, Fresno and the Inland Empire east of Los Angeles ranked among the bottom 10 of the country’s large metro areas, showing the geographic disparities of high-value jobs in California.
Employment growth in 2014 was higher in counties that saw bigger declines in the duration of benefits. Overall, the authors estimate that the benefit cut led to the creation of 1.8m extra jobs in 2014—about two-thirds of the total.
With the trends moving in opposite directions, Texas now has a larger share of its workforce in government jobs than California. With a civilian workforce of just over 13 million, about 14.3% of all working Texans have government jobs.
Simply stating that legislation is pro-job in a legislative floor speech or opening a Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development isn’t sufficient to creating a pro-growth business environment. If Sacramento seriously wants to foster a robust job market, the state needs strong economic growth, which requires nurturing, consistently and vigorously, a healthy business climate.
The goal is part of a newly announced initiative targeting an estimated 1 million degree gap in the state economy by 2025. While more than 900,000 CSU students earned degrees in the past decade, the six-year graduation rate for freshmen hovers around 51 percent.