CA July 2010 unemployment same at 12.3%
Business, it’s time to step up and put your money where your mouth is. The economy will not come back until you hire American workers, so that they can spend (and become one of your markets, again).
The California Employment Development Department (EDD) released the latest unemployment numbers for July 2010 on August 20. The unemployment rate was the same as June’s, 12.3%, and nonfarm payroll jobs actually DECREASED by 9,400 during the month. The job losses were mostly in governement employment, temporary Census jobs, whereas private nonfarm payrolls grew by 13,700 jobs.
The U.S. unemployment rate was also unchanged in July at 9.5%. In June of 2009, California’s unemployment rate was 11.8%. The number of people unemployed in California was 2,251,000, which was up by 100,000 from July 2009.
“Five industry divisions (mining and logging; information; professional and business services; educational and health services; and other services) posted job gains over the year, adding 65,400 jobs. Educational and health services recorded the largest increase over the year on both a numerical and percentage basis, up 35,500 jobs (a 2.0 percent increase).
Six categories (construction; manufacturing; trade, transportation and utilities; financial activities; leisure and hospitality; and government) posted job declines over the year, down 169,200 jobs. Construction employment showed the largest decline over the year on both a numerical and percentage basis, down by 54,300 jobs (a decline of 9.1 percent).”
Some 23 California counties had unemployment rates of 15.0% or greater in July, with Imperial County leading the list at 30.3%.
(Note added later August 24, 2010: If you would like to read some of the same old business platitudes about being taxed too much [and we really probably ARE – certainly in California] you can read Intel’s Otellini’s comments here. One interesting comment in the article is from Chris Marangi, associate portfolio manager at Gamco Investors that, “Capital is agnostic. It doesn’t have a religion. It doesn’t have a philosophy. It goes where it finds the highest returns.” The problem, Marangi said, is that many other “countries have a more friendly regulatory regime than we do.” That is really not the PROBLEM at all. If capital is agnostic (and it is), then businesses that are ruled ONLY by searching for the highest returns are of necessity parasitic upon the country that harbors them. Such businesses must move like locusts from one area that they have stripped clean to another with “higher returns.” [Hey! This could also explain the political aspirations of some failed business CEOs! 
] I have seen this behavior firsthand in my life with the movement of businesses from Midwestern areas during union-busting activities. I imagine that not only U.S. tax rates, but also things like OSHA and child-labor laws in the U.S. must really “cramp the style” of such free-wheeling “free market” companies [some of which are directly responsible for plunging the world into the recession that we are attempting to exit]. No, it is not tax rate or regulations but GREED that is the underlying problem. [I will have to refer readers once again to the award-winning film, “The Corporation.”] Businesses that are moved by intelligence and observation rather than by models and platitudes understand their responsibilities to the community, country, and world, of which they are a part, and not SOLELY their responsibilities to their stockholders, to whom they are primarily responsible.)
(Note added August 25, 2010: As I drifted off to sleep last night, I thought about the question, “Is capital really ‘agnostic?'” Perhaps so, in the sense in which it was used above. Or perhaps it is a religion in itself….)
-Bill at
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