In a stunning development just 48 hours after Breitbart California published “262,” employees at Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) headquarters in Hawthorne, California filed a lawsuit claiming the rocket builder on or about July 21st violated California Labor Law by laying off up to 400 factory workers, or about 11% of the entire company workforce.
Middle-wage stagnation can damage consumer spending, dent career mobility, stall home buying and exacerbate a poverty rate that’s already the highest in the country, economists warn. Those concerns are amplified in a state notorious for a high cost of living. As more mid-tier jobs disappear, economists fear middle-class workers will be increasingly sucked into the ranks of the working poor. And they could crowd out those already working low-wage jobs, or drive their salaries down further.
Hiring by U.S. employers remained robust in July, if a bit slower than previous months, with a broad-based rise in payrolls extending a half-year streak of strong employment gains. . . The unemployment rate, obtained via a separate survey of households, ticked up to a seasonally adjusted 6.2% in July from 6.1% in June. The rise in part reflects an increase in the number of people looking for jobs, some of whom are now being counted as unemployed. The labor-force participation rate ticked up slightly in July, to 62.9% from 62.8% in June, though it remained near its lowest level since the late 1970s.
California’s unemployment rate dipped to 7.4% in June, a month in which the state finally recovered all the jobs lost during the recession.
While most indicators signal an economic upswing in California, the reality facing many residents of the Golden State is simple: On the ground, the recovery is still sluggish. Nowhere is that more apparent than in a newly developed database that includes detailed economic information on each of California’s 120 legislative districts and 58 counties.
Initial jobless claims fell to near a seven-year low last week in a sign of continued improvement in the labor market.
U.S. employers added jobs at a robust clip in June and the unemployment rate fell, signs of labor-market strength as the economic recovery heads into its sixth year.
Nonfarm employment advanced at a seasonally adjusted 288,000 last month, the Labor Department said Thursday. The combined gains for the prior two months were revised up 29,000. April’s 304,000 increase was the strongest since January 2012.
About 956,000 Sacramento residents were employed in 2013, compared to 982,000 in 2007, the year before the recession began. Sacramento has added another 14,000 jobs so far in 2014 but still lags behind the pre-recession total. The United States as a whole has regained all of the jobs lost during the recession.
The statewide unemployment rate fell two-tenths of a percentage point, to 7.6 percent, the Employment Development Department reported Friday. It was the lowest level since August 2008, a month before the market crash tipped the country into recession.
Each month since April 2012 except one, Los Angeles County has seen at least 2% year-over-year job growth, compared with a 1.7% average across the country.
Unemployment fell from 3.3 to 3.2 percent for people with a bachelor’s degree or more, and from 5.7 to 5.5 percent for those with some college. But it actually rose from 6.3 to 6.5 percent for people with only a high school diploma, and from 8.9 to 9.1 percent for those without one.
Employers hired steadily in May, placing the U.S. on the one of the best four-month stretches of job creation since late 1990s and renewing optimism about the five-year-long recovery.
Nonfarm employment advanced a seasonally adjusted 217,000 last month, the Labor Department said Friday. April’s gain was revised down slightly, but the increase of 282,000 was the best in more than two years.
Without the dramatic revenue dips or spikes of years past, and with scant new policy proposals, this year’s May Revision was about as exciting as a jar of pudding.
But one number jumped out. By next year, the state expects 11 million Californians – 30% of the population to receive Medi-Cal benefits.
California’s unemployment rate dropped below 8% last month for the first time in nearly six years as employers put the state on the verge of recovering all of the jobs lost during the Great Recession . . . California’s unemployment rate remains the fourth-highest in the country, behind Rhode Island at 8.3%, Nevada at 8% and Illinois at 7.9%.
Americans gained jobs at the fastest pace in more than two years last month and the jobless rate plunged, a sign the economy has rebounded from a winter rut.