Google (GOOG) over the last few weeks has struck deals to rent or buy more than 1 million square feet of offices in Santa Clara County, including the purchase of several Mountain View buildings in recent days, extending a stunning expansion by the Internet giant.
The Employment Development Department said today that statewide unemployment rose to 8.9 percent in August, up two-tenths of a point. But statewide payrolls grew by 29,100 – the second highest payroll growth in the nation.
Los Angeles County’s unemployment rate climbed back into double digits in August, reaching 10.1 percent, according to state figures released Friday.
“In many ways California’s economy these days resembles a Charles Dickens novel.
The state’s coastal areas are starting to resemble better times. Unemployment rates have plunged and housing prices have skyrocketed faster than anywhere in the country.
But inland areas can’t shake the worst of times. Unemployment remains in double digits. Central Valley farmers recently struggled through a bone-dry spring as state and federal authorities repeatedly cut their water deliveries. And incomes in the inland regions lag coastal parts of California.”
Citing the healthier housing market, improved state budget situation and the prospect of a new downtown NBA arena, UOP economist Jeff Michael said Thursday that Sacramento’s job market will pick up steam in 2014 and 2015.
The move to hire 18,000 fewer temporary holiday workers versus last year’s 88,000 comes as the Minneapolis-based chain saw that its own permanent employees wanted to get first dibs on working extra hours for the holiday season.
Teenagers and young adults are still mired in dire levels of unemployment in Los Angeles County, years after the recession officially ended. New estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau reveal that last year, the unemployment rate for Angelenos ages 20 to 24 had stagnated at 19%. Joblessness was even higher for Angelenos between the ages of 16 and 19, with 41% of those in the labor force still unemployed, according to the new estimates from the American Community Survey.
The Sacramento metro area had the highest business bankruptcy rate in the United States, global information service company Experian announced Wednesday. . . . Other California cities noted in the analysis: Bakersfield had thesecond highest business bankruptcy at 2.16 percent; San Francisco had the fastest businesses to pay bills after contracted terms at 3.2 days; and San Diego had the fourth lowest delinquency rate at 3.13 percent.
But the recovery has left many young people behind. The official unemployment rate for Americans under age 25 was 15.6% in August, down from a peak of nearly 20% in 2010 but still more than 2½ times the rate for those 25 and older—a gap that has widened during the recovery. Moreover, the unemployment rate ignores the hundreds of thousands of young people who have taken shelter from the weak job market by going to college, enrolling in training programs or otherwise sitting on the sidelines. Add them back in, and the unemployment rate for Americans under 25 would be over 20%. Even those lucky enough to be employed are often struggling. Little more than half are working full time—compared with about 80% of the population at large—and 12% earn minimum wage or less. The median weekly wage for young workers has fallen more than 5% since 2007, after adjusting for inflation; for those 25 and older, wages have stayed roughly flat.
Workers in California would be paid at least $10 an hour in 2016 under a bill passed by the legislature Thursday, a measure likely to make the state the first to guarantee such a high minimum wage.
The economic recovery in the Bay Area and California is gaining steam, analysts said Thursday, yet the pace of job growth is being hampered by new technologies that enable employers to limit hiring. Economists with the closely watched UCLA Anderson Forecast say the Bay Area is leading the economic rebound in California, and that California is leading the nation. But the upswing is uneven. “This is a bifurcated recovery,” said Anderson Forecast senior economist Jerry Nickelsburg.
Economists at the UCLA Anderson Forecast said Thursday that the pace of job growth has slowed in the Golden State, raising fears that structural problems in the labor market will temper future employment gains. UCLA economists said in their quarterly forecast that a large proportion of California workers’ education and training is obsolete for jobs in technology and other industries that require “21st century” skills.
California’s economy is in for more of the steady, unspectacular growth the state has experienced the past few years, according to a new forecast. The latest UCLA Anderson Forecast, released today , says California can expected a continued fall in unemployment in the coming years, with the Sacramento region and the rest of the Central Valley still lagging the more prosperous coastal regions. Overall, the state continues to outperform the national economy, with job growth of 2.8 percent over the past 12 months, and the gap between the U.S. and California unemployment rates has been cut in half to 1.4 percent.
Regional entrepreneurship ecosystems, aka startup communities, are being studied and touted as the next new thing in economic development for cities and metropolitan areas across the country—especially in the high-technology and information technology (ICT) sectors. And for good reason. According to a report by Ian Hathaway of Engine that looked closely at the dynamism of the high-tech and ICT sectors in the United States, particularly new and young companies, these are the firms that create jobs at the fastest pace and are important drivers of economic growth.
Our research finds little evidence of a meaningful and persistent skills gap in most parts of the U.S., including in its most important manufacturing zones. The real problem is that companies have become too passive in recruiting and developing skilled workers at a time when the U.S. education system has moved away from a focus on manufacturing skills in order to put greater emphasis on other capabilities. Over the long term, therefore, serious skills shortages could develop unless action is taken.