In all but forcing out fossil-fuel firms, California is shedding one of its historic core industries. Not long ago, California was home to a host of top 10 energy firms – ARCO, Getty Oil, Union Oil, Oxy and Chevron; in 1970, oil firms constituted the five largest industrial companies in the state. Now, only Chevron, which has been reducing its headcount in Northern California and is clearly shifting its emphasis to Texas, will remain.
Last week, the San Francisco Business Journal reported that Charles Schwab SCHW +0.34% is planning on moving “a significant number of San Francisco-based jobs” out of the state over the next three to five years. Charles Schwab’s San Francisco roots date back to its founding four decades ago, with the firm ranking as the 47th-largest employer in the Bay Area. The company employs almost 2,700 people in the region, and has a company-wide workforce of 13,600. Observers close to the situation blame the city’s extreme payroll tax and high cost of doing business in California as the reasons for the company’s exodus.
State Sen. Noreen Evans (D-Santa Rosa) on Wednesday revived a proposal to tax oil pumped from the ground in California, saying the $2 billion it would raise annually could help restore the affordability of higher education and improve social services and parks.
Raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour by 2016 would cost the economy 500,000 jobs, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
After nearly a century here, Westwood oil giant Occidental Petroleum Corp. is moving its headquarters to Houston.
Unusually cold weather in January chilled factories’ output and froze up some mining operations but boosted utility consumption as Americans huddled for warmth. Total industrial production fell a seasonally adjusted 0.3% in January, the Federal Reserve said Friday. It was the first decline for the reading since July.
Yet taken together, the federal standards effectively cancel out the California standard. Instead of promoting fuel reduction as intended, the California standard allows for the production of less-efficient vehicles, while facilitating a massive transfer of cash via credit trading. It also forms a de facto industrial policy that sends us down a path toward electric vehicles that may or may not be the best technological or environmental choice for the future.
The biggest issue facing the American economy, and our political system, is the gradual descent of the middle class into proletarian status. This process, which has been going on intermittently since the 1970s, has worsened considerably over the past five years, and threatens to turn this century into one marked by downward mobility.
An ordinance soon to be introduced in the City Council is expected to require 87 large hotels to pay a $15.37-an-hour “living wage,” nearly double California’s current $8-an-hour minimum.
In January, as businesses struggled through a weak post-holiday period in a month that already tends to be slow, industry sales slid by their largest margin in 18 months.
An economic recovery that looked poised to lift off is reverting to its characteristic sluggishness as gauges of shopping activity, job creation, wage growth and factory output flash yellow.
Overall, in another sign that California’s economy is shaking off the recession, state tax officials reported Tuesday that the statewide median income – for 2012 – was $70,938, up 4.1 percent over the previous year. That’s for those filing joint tax returns. For individual returns, the 2012 median income was $35,910, an increase of 3.5 percent, according to the state Franchise Tax Board.
The bills are part of a greater movement among states to stop contracting out in cases when the work is seen as better suited for public employees — an effort largely organized by the nation’s largest public services employees union, AFSCME.
The Home Depot Inc. says it’s preparing to hire 80,000 workers as it prepares for spring, the company’s busiest selling season . . . The do-it-yourself giant’s hiring website currently lists 16,928 open positions nationwide, including 232 openings for part-time workers in California, 178 in Texas, 100 in New York,
HGST, a unit of Western Digital, intends to construct two big, new buildings in south San Jose in an expansion of its campus that could create up to 1,700 jobs and help develop a transit and technology village for the area, according to documents filed with city planners.HGST, a unit of Western Digital, intends to construct two big, new buildings in south San Jose in an expansion of its campus that could create up to 1,700 jobs and help develop a transit and technology village for the area, according to documents filed with city planners.