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The Sacramento Area Commerce and Trade Organization showcased nine companies at an annual luncheon Wednesday whose expansions or moving to the region will create 1,485 new jobs.

These Golden State companies, which number 60 in all, have expanded, relocated or moved jobs to Texas, Perry said. Eleven of the businesses have relocated their headquarters to the Lone Star State, including longtime Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum.

More than 517,000 containers moved through the port in February. Imports were down 2.7 percent, but exports increased 2.1 percent, compared to the same period last year. The number of empty containers sent overseas to be filled with goods dropped 8.3 percent.

WalletHub analyzed how state and local tax rates compare to the national median in the 50 states as well as the District of Columbia.  We compared eight different types of taxation in order to determine:  1) Which states have the highest and lowest tax rates; 2) how those rates compare to the national median; 3) which states offer the most value in terms of low taxation and high cost-of-living adjusted income levels.

The average American family pays nearly $7,000 in state and local taxes in a given year, but the actual amounts vary wildly. A Californian who lives on the western side of Lake Tahoe pays almost three times more in state taxes than their neighbor on the Nevada side of the lake. Someone living in Portland, Ore., pays more than twice as much as a neighbor living across the Columbia River in Vancouver, Wash.

The layoffs were felt at the studio’s Culver City headquarters and at international offices. Among the divisions said to be deeply affected by the staff reductions is Sony Pictures Interactive, the studio’s digital marketing arm. 

Teens and young adults traditionally have struggled much more to find work than their older counterparts. But a new Brookings Institution report shows the road to employment for young job seekers nationwide and here in Sacramento during the 2000s has been especially rocky.

Regardless of the most recent data point, California’s job performance has been better than expected, and we should all be thankful for that.  However, comparison with the United States average is not the only metric.  Comparison with California’s potential is the correct metric, and there California is underperforming in a big way.  Given all of its advantages, California should be leading the nation in job creation and opportunity.

California’s economy is recovering from its worst recession since the Great Depression – no doubt about that.

But its recovery is very slow, very geographically and socioeconomically uneven, and exacerbates the decline of a once-vibrant middle class and the evolution of a distinctly two-tiered society.

The Sacramento region placed 97th on a list of the 100 largest U.S cities ranked by employment rate for young people aged 20 to 24. For teenagers, the region placed 82nd.

The Brown administration  released a blueprint Thursday for increasing California exports and foreign investment, mostly though educating statewide businesses on trade opportunities and by strengthening relationships with federal and foreign trade officials.

Los Angeles’s entertainment and San Francisco’s tech industries are the state’s two big cash cows, home to powerful, rich, and mostly left-leaning industry leaders who support the state’s deep blue and green politics. All too often, the policies championed by the LA and San Francisco elite make life harder for people in poorer, inland parts of the state by increasing red tape and taxes and driving much-needed businesses to neighboring states.

Since the Great Recession began in late 2007, that path has narrowed because many of the next-tier jobs no longer exist. That means more lower-wage workers have to stay put. The resulting bottleneck is helping widen a gap between the richest Americans and everyone else.

The Germany-based drug maker makes the blood-clotting hemophilia A drug Kogenate in Berkeley and recommitted to that facility in 2011 with a four-year contract for its unionized workforce. But the company said Tuesday that two experimental drugs will add to its pipeline and it needs to expand German facilities in Leverkusen and Wuppertal by 2020.

Starting next year, the law will force fuel distributors into the same cap-and-trade marketplace as utilities and major manufacturers. The oil industry says it will lead to price increases of at least 12 cents a gallon immediately, while state regulators say any price spikes could vary widely, from barely noticeable to double-digits.