 |
 -0 |
 |
|
||||||||
 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
 |
|
Job Cutbacks Accelerating in California The cutbacks were felt across a wide spectrum of the economy, which is being weighed down by a massive budget gap and ballooning business costs. The job losses are the largest since December and mark the fourth consecutive month of payroll declines in California. Analysts said the state, after outperforming the nation through much of the economic downturn, has become one of the weakest labor markets, in large part because of the continued technology downturn in the Bay Area. Southern California, meanwhile, has fared better. Since February, California has lost a net 54,300 jobs, or nearly 0.4% of its nonfarm jobs, double the national rate. More worrisome, the pink slips appear to be accelerating at a time when many economists had predicted they would level off in anticipation of employment growth in the second half of the year. A state Employment Development Department survey showed that California's jobless rate dipped to 6.6% in May from a revised 6.8% in April. But economists said that was largely because so many people have stopped looking for work, gone back to school or left the state and thus are no longer counted in the jobless statistics. California's long-suffering technology sector cut additional jobs in May, as did factories, which have shrunk their payrolls now in 28 of the last 29 months. The construction, retailing, government and business services sectors all axed positions as well, signaling widespread pessimism among employers. Analysts said a slew of negative factors have converged in the state and that could make its recovery tougher than that of the rest of the nation. They include unprecedented state budget woes, skyrocketing workers' compensation costs, a sluggish tourism sector and continued weak demand for high-tech goods, the state's biggest export. "All these things are discouraging hiring," said economist Esmael Adibi, director of the Anderson Center for Economic Research at Chapman University in Orange. "California is going to lag the rest of the country." The national economy lost a net 17,000 nonfarm payroll jobs last month, driving the U.S. jobless rate to a nearly nine-year high of 6.1%, the Labor Department said. Employment nationwide has fallen by 289,000 over the last four months, with nearly 1 in 5 of those losses in California. California's labor market is a tale of two economies, with Southern California holding its own while the Bay Area continues its long slide. The Southland added jobs on a seasonally unadjusted basis in May and still boasts some of the lowest unemployment rates in the state. Orange County, for example, posted a seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate of 3.6% in May. The unadjusted jobless rate last month for Los Angeles County was 6.3%. In contrast, unemployment in Santa Clara County, home of such Silicon Valley giants as Cisco Systems Inc. and Intel Corp., stood at 8%. The county's labor force has shrunk by 10.6% since employment peaked in December 2001 as workers have fled for greener pastures. Dale Bott, a former Bay Area computer technician, lost his $20-an-hour job with a dot-com in 2001. Unable to find anything paying close to that after the tech bubble burst, he moved last year to New Mexico, where he stocks grocery shelves for $6.25 an hour in Truth or Consequences. "If I had stayed in California, I'd be living in the street," said Bott, 53. "I'm a reality guy This job doesn't pay a lot, but at least the cost of living is a lot lower here."
It's a choice that more of
|
|
|
