California produced sturdy job gains in January, a welcome increase that suggests the state has — so far — been able to withstand the effects of a dreary drumbeat of tech and biotech layoffs, a new report released Friday shows.
Statewide, employers added 96,700 nonfarm payroll jobs in January, starting off 2023 on a promising note.
The unemployment rate in California increased to 4.2% in January, up from 4.1% in December, the state Employment Development Department reported.
Since mid-2022, tech and biotech companies have revealed plans to chop well over 22,000 jobs in the Bay Area. Many of the layoffs have already occurred, while other job cuts are upcoming, according to official WARN notices that the companies have filed with the state EDD.
The largest numbers of layoffs affecting workers in the Bay Area have been orchestrated by Meta Platforms, which cut 2,564 jobs in Menlo Park, San Francisco, Fremont, Sunnyvale and Burlingame; Google, which cut about 1,600 jobs in Mountain View, Moffett Field, San Bruno and Palo Alto; Salesforce, 1,010 job cuts in San Francisco; Cepheid, 925 layoffs in Newark and Sunnyvale; and Twitter, with 900 job cuts in San Francisco and San Jose.
Dorms on the budget chopping block?
In other state economic news, the “eyes and ears” of the Legislature may not be seeing eye-to-eye with key lawmakers.
The Legislative Analyst’s Office is questioning the entire premise of the state being in the college student housing game.
In a report published Thursday, the office writes that given the projected multi-year budget deficits of at least $22.5 billion, lawmakers “could” (the word “should” never appears while “could” is used 17 times) just remove the remaining roughly $2.5 billion in grants and interest-free loans that past state budgets promised California’s public colleges and universities between 2023-24 and 24-25.
It’s a proposal that’s consistent with the office’s pursuit to find as many recent higher-education programs as possible to delay or cut given the state’s shaky fiscal outlook.
- The analyst’s office: “As projects are in early phases and campuses have options for building student housing without state support, removing these grant funds (and loans) could be one of the relatively less disruptive ways to achieve state budget solutions.”
That’s awkward given that the chairpersons of the budget subcommittees on education in both the Assembly and Senate are adamant about not just preserving this funding but also shielding it from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal to delay some of the money by a year. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh, a Republican senator from Rancho Cucamonga, also endorsed that view at a Senate subcommittee hearing Thursday.
- Ochoa Bogh: It’s important that “we have the funding available and not delayed… in order to build housing necessary to accommodate those students in the universities, especially when the state is requiring a certain level of enrollment for each university.”
The analyst’s office floated three other housing proposals:
- Direct any available money instead to repairing campus academic buildings. The rationale: Unlike student housing, which is self-sustaining from student rents, academic structures don’t generate outside revenue. The office has warned of a growing, massive backlog in deferred maintenance — more than $14 billion across the state’s public colleges and universities.
- Shift the promised $750 million in student grant housing to a state-run loan program that won’t charge campuses interest.
- Fund the housing grant in 2023-24, but limit the money to just the UC and Cal State systems — removing a promise that community colleges would get half of the total grant money.
