The California unemployment rate rose to 12.5 percent in December, up from 12.4 percent the previous month, The Los Angeles Times noted. California’s unemployment rate is now among the highest in the country, trumping the national unemployment rate by nearly 2 percent. California employers added just 4,900 jobs in December, the Employment Development Department reported, after adding 30,500 the month prior. The biggest losses were seen in the government sector, which shed 15,400 jobs. Overall, California has added a total of 87,500 jobs in 2010. The openings came mostly from professional and business services; education and health; and leisure and hospitality. Although the additions are not enough to lower the unemployment rate, it is an improvement compared to 2009 when the state lost 836,000 positions.

Economic activity is increasing across a number of important sectors in California, according to the latest UCLA Anderson Forecast for California. The outlook for an expansion of the workforce shows momentum building into 2012, according to economic models presented by UCLA Professor and Senior Economist Jerry Nickelsburg. He suggested that statewide unemployment would drop to 11.4% by the end of this year and 10.3% in 2012. It is presently, 12.4% “The forecast also suggested that the unemployment rate for some of the hi-tech driven coastal communities could fall as low as 8.5% next year, and to 7.4 percent in 2012.” Professor Nickelsburg reported that job creation has been positive, especially in coastal California, for much of the calendar year, while inland communities are still under high unemployment pressure. However, job creation still remains below levels expected in a well-functioning job market. Even with a large deficit, looming record pension debt, and high unemployment, “California is economically much better off than the 10 most populous states – maybe even Texas,” Nickelsburg also indicated that the data does not support the mass exodus of businesses to other states outside California, which is suggested may be a myth.

In November, Calilifornia posted its 13th consecutive month of year-over-year increases in export trade according to Beacon Economics, which analyzed foreign trade data from the U.S. Commerce Department. California businesses shipped abroad in November $12.49 billion in goods, exceeding by 14.1 percent the $10.95 billion shipped in November 2009. It was California’s best November ever in inflation-adjusted terms, Jock O’Connell, Beacon Economics’ international trade adviser, said in a news release.

The good news was tempered somewhat by the fact that California did not quite keep pace with the nation as a whole which boosted its merchandise exports by 19.4 percent. Also, California has a relatively high percentage of re-exports, which are items previously imported into the United States that have had no significant value added prior to being shipped abroad. “California’s numerous trading companies do a superb job sourcing goods from around the world and matching them with foreign customers,” O’Connell said. “That’s why California’s re-export trade leaped by 36.3 percent in November.” Exports of goods manufactured in California, meanwhile, increased just 6.7 percent. Overall U.S. manufactured exports, in contrast, jumped 16.7 percent, O’Connell reported.

California made up 11.1 percent of all U.S. merchandise exports in November, but just 9.6 percent of its manufactured exports, Beacon reported. California’s exports of nonmanufactured goods represented 12.4 percent of the nation’s exports of those goods, but fully 19.8 percent of the nation’s shipments of re-exported goods came from California.

As a result, California’s export trade has a less immediate positive impact on the state’s economy and on its propensity for job creation, O’Connell said. “California manufacturers have become exceptionally efficient in increasing output without adding new hires,” O’Connell said in the release. “And the goods they produce tend to be of increasingly higher value. That’s why it is possible for the value of our manufactured exports to rise without there being a commensurate level of job growth.”

That also explains why California lost 4,400 manufacturing jobs between November 2010 and November 2009, based on seasonally adjusted numbers from the California Employment Development Department, despite California adding 110,900 jobs overall, O’Connell said.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will be leading a trade mission to South Korea, next week,  from Sept. 12-16. The purpose of this trip is to showcase California goods and services, promote tourism and the expansion of trade between California and South Korea. The trip is being organized by the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce and will be will be organizing a number of business opportunities throughout the trade mission to allow California companies participating in the mission to connect with key business and government decision makers.

South Korea is California’s 5th largest trading partner, a press release by the Chamber notes. It is one of the fastest growing economies in the world today. Its economy relies heavily on exports to prosper. The following are some of the sectors that the Korean market demands more products from: automotive, broadcasting, communication and computer technologies, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals/nutritional supplements, and environmental technology, education and training services.

The California Chamber of Commerce is apparently continuing its transition from a business association to a political lobbying organization for the Republican party. They are now funding vicious televised attack ads against Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown, implying that he is somehow responsible now that “California’s lost one million jobs” and the fact that “we’re 200 billion dollars in debt”

The Chamber broke a tradition of non-partisanship dating back more than 100 years when it endorsed Schwarzenegger in the 2003 recall election. For this, they were rewarded handsomely by the Schwarzenegger administration and were given unprecedented access and influence over our State government, to the detriment of almost everyone else – especially small business. The “job killer” label they put on any legislation they didn’t like, for example, for many years virtually guaranteed a Schwarzenegger veto.

According to several news reports, complaints have now been filed with the California Fair Political Practices Commission that say the Chamber didn’t even fund this ad through its own political action committee- since that would have been subject to disclosure regulations, and instead paid for it through their membership dues, to the tune of more than one million dollars! They also noted that Republican candidate Meg Whitman’s campaign manager, former Gov. Pete Wilson, is on the chamber’s board.

The man responsible for turning the California Chamber of Commerce into this overtly partisan political organization is apparently their President and CEO: Allan Zaremberg, He was the Master of Ceremonies at the Republican Primary Gubernatorial Debate in Orange County last month, touting his take on “the importance of a business-friendly governor to California”.

He is also the head of the “California State Protocol Foundation” – a shadowy “non profit organization” has paid for millions of dollars’ worth of Schwarzenegger’s overseas travel and other bills racked up by his office, including the use of private jets. This group claims these payments allow the Governor to meet with foreign dignitaries, “thereby supporting business opportunities between California and their countries” but what they have really done is turn what should have been public interest trade missions into luxury junkets with blatant cronyism. More than anything, this organization has corrupted and perverted California’s international trade and economic development programs, and it is almost unbelievable that they have gotten away with it.

The ad now being run by the California Chamber is stunning in its dishonesty. For example, they attack Brown for having been against Proposition 13, the property tax initiative, not mentioning that they were also opposed to it at the time. The theme of the ad is “enough is enough” and that may very well be the way many in California feel about the California Chamber of Commerce.

Let’s hope the next Governor- who ever he or she is, from whatever party, will stop this bullying and political manipulation by the California Chamber of Commerce. The rest of us – especially small business, deserve a seat at the table on California business issues for a change. It seems to me that members of the California Chamber of Commerce should not only resign from this organization, they should also demand a full refund of their membership fees for as many years as they have been members. Regardless of their political party, I’m sure they didn’t sign on for this garbage.

Could exports lead California out of the recession?  There is at least a glimmer of hope in a an analysis of federal trade data by the University of California Center Sacramento.  According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, The $10.3 billion in goods shipped abroad in January represented a 18.5% increase over the $8.7 billion recorded during the same month last year. The products shipped by land, sea and air included high-end, top-value items such as civilian aircraft engines and parts. They also included low-value bulk, such as scrap metal and paper that will become the raw materials for new goods manufactured in Asia.  “We are now just getting back to the level of exporting we were at in early 2007, before the global financial and economic crisis sent international trade spiraling down,” said Jock O’Connell, the UC center’s international trade and economics advisor. 

Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc., based in Culver City, will be laying off about 450 people and eliminating 100 open positions to cope with declining DVD sales. Most of the cuts at the studio will occur by the first week of March and will be in the home entertainment and information-technology units in the United States.

The company, a subsidiary of Japan’s Sony Corp. also cut back last March, when it laid off nearly 250 people and eliminated nearly 100 open positions. Company staff was informed of the latest cuts in a memo Monday and through videos by the studio co-chairs on an employee Web site. “Our industry is affected by two things: It’s affected by the economy, of course, and it’s affected by technology,” co-chair Amy Pascal says in the video. “Over the last two years, it’s changed people’s DVD buying habits, which has had a huge effect on our company and the industry at large.”

The home video market has been declining as people have not been buying videos as often, and instead turn to rentals, which are far less profitable for the industry.

In a rare uplifting moments after the unspeakable tragedy and human suffering in Haiti, this video shows the Los Angeles Urban Rescue team being cheered with chants of “USA” after saving a woman from the rubble of a collapsed building.

China has unilaterally declared that their depute with Google over censorship and strong evidence of government sponsored hacking will not affect U.S. Trade relations, but do they get to make that call?  

“Any decision made by Google will not affect Sino-U.S. trade and economic relations, as the two sides have many ways to communicate and negotiate with each other,” Chinese government spokesman Yao Jian told a news briefing in Beijing.

Well of course the two sides have many ways to communicate with each other – that is not the point. If one party to a trade agreement censors and blocks the content of the other party, then of course it should it should be a trade issue.  In the tit for tat world of diplomacy, if they block the content from one of our companies, then shouldn’t we block one of theirs?

California buys a huge amount of Chinese imports, but they don’t by nearly as many of our exports. One of our strongest industries in the movie industry – but only 20 foreign films are even allowed to be shown in that country each year. The rest of the movies we produce here are simply pirated (i.e. stolen) there, Can you imagine if we said to China, “we will only allow the products from 20 of your manufacturers in our country each year”. Now they are blocking, and possibly even attacking, one of California’s other great industries – Internet services.

It is not at all disrespectful to China to expect our government to respond to blocking and censorship with reciprocal actions that affect Chinese companies. That is how a mature trade relationship works. Mr. Yao Jian has it wrong. This is exactly the kind of thing that should affect trade and economic relations – this is a trade issue.

UPDATE: Evidence that the Obama Administration may be looking at these blocking and censorship issues from a more sensible “fair trade” perspective, might be found in a speech Secretary of State Clinton plans to give on the issue on Thursday. From a column by Andrew Ross in today’s San Francisco Chronicle:

“The Internet is integral to the international trading system,” said Ed Black, CEO of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, who is scheduled to meet with Clinton on the matter this week. “China cannot limit the free flow of information and still comply with its international trade obligations.” “You can’t lecture the Chinese on human rights,” said another industry executive. “You won’t get anywhere with that. So, it’s best to treat it as a trade issue.”

Should the administration go that route, it will enlarge the can of U.S.-China worms already growing around the latter’s increasingly protectionist economic policies. “Greater control of the Internet is part of a wholesale tightening up of the Chinese economy,” said an executive with a high-tech trade organization that is also due to meet with Clinton. “It’s about protecting domestic industries and pushing indigenous innovation. But they’re doing it in blatantly discriminatory, brazenly unfair ways.”

California will be sending a 72 member urban rescue team to assist with the humanitarian efforts in Haiti.   According to an AP report, California Task Force 2, organized by the Los Angeles County Fire Department, began getting ready shortly after the magnitude-7.0 quake devastated impoverished Haiti. The team includes firefighters, paramedics, emergency room doctors, search dogs and handlers, heavy equipment specialists and engineers trained in rescues from collapsed structures.

This is from Governor Schwarzenegger’s press release about his proposed budget:

To achieve $1.4 billion in General Fund savings, Governor Schwarzenegger proposed 15 percent reduction in state personnel costs achieved by modifying employee compensation and reducing our workforce budget … as follows:
   *   Employees will be required to contribute an additional five percent towards their retirement costs;
    * An across the board five percent reduction in all salaries;
    * A five percent reduction in the cost of the state workforce payroll implemented by executive order S-01-10 requiring all department directors to reduce their payrolls by five percent.

This sounds a little too incremental for me.  Certainly most State employees can take a five percent hit – they have pretty good jobs, but this isn’t getting to the root of the problem.   What about eliminating Civil Service postions all together?   Put government workers under employment contracts instead – even generous ones.  Then they could stop paying pensions as well, something none of the rest of us get. 

The UCLA Anderson Forecast for the third quarter of 2009 has just been released, and says that while this huge recession may have ended, unemployment will stay in double digits and the “negative impact of the downturn will last well into the next decade”. Unemployment going to get worse and is expected to rise to 12.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009. Though the economy will be growing in 2011, it will not be generating enough jobs to drive the unemployment rate below double digits until 2012. Economist Jerry Nickelsburg called the unemployment situation “ugly” and will remain so for some time to come. “More rapid growth than can be expected over the next twelve months would be required to bring the unemployment rate down,” he said.

There is one possible silver lining in all these dark clouds, however – exports may be improving. According to Nickelsburg, “In trade and manufacturing, there is new evidence that demand for California-produced goods is increasing. He believes that the keys to the California recovery are exports of manufactured and agricultural goods, a recovery in U.S., increased public works construction and increased investment in business equipment and software.

With a long history of bad moves and missed opportunities, California has soured on Governor Schwarzenegger. In spite of his “nice guy” image, a field poll just released shows that only 27 percent of residents approve of Schwarzenegger’s job performance while 65 percent disapprove. This is That’s the lowest approval rating for any California governor in 50 years – except for Gray Davis who registered a 22 percent approval rating in 2003 just before voters recalled him. Voters are even more disgusted with the State Legislature with only a 13 percent approval rating – the lowest in 25 years. “It’s brutal,” Field Poll director Mark DiCamillo said to the San Francisco Chronicle. ” ‘How low can we go?’ is an open question. Voters don’t think we’ve bottomed out yet.”

Apple Inc. has quit the U.S. Chamber of Commerce because the group has been too critical of proposed steps to cut pollution. This seems like a good move. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce represents many of the really huge Corporations in the U.S., but has never shown any real interest in small business concerns, or in the rest of our society for that matter. As reported in San Francisco Business Times:

The Cupertino computer and popular electronics business is just one of several businesses, including Nike Inc. and PG&E Corp., that have criticized the chamber’s stance. Nike resigned from the chamber’s board of directors but stayed as a member of the group. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce criticized proposed “cap-and-trade” legislation passed by the House of Representatives and due to come before the Senate. Apple’s vice president of worldwide government affairs, Catherine Novelli, sent a letter to Thomas Donohue, president and CEO of the chamber, in which she said, “We would prefer that the Chamber take a more progressive stance on this critical issue.”

California was the second-largest loser of manufacturing jobs — 123,400 — over the past year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Only Ohio lost more more jobs than the Golden State: 127,000. A report by the Milken Institute released earlier this summer reached a similar conclusion, but noted that the state is hemorrhaging high-tech manufacturing jobs at an even higher rate than in traditional manufacturing industries. California’s employment in this high-wage, high-skill segment is down 23 percent from 2000 levels, as opposed to declines nationally of 19 percent and the peer states’ average of 16 percent. In fact, from 2003 to 2007, encompassing the recovery of the high-tech sector, the peer states gained 24,000 high-tech manufacturing jobs while California lost almost 16,000.

“Widespread misconceptions about the manufacturing sector in California are part of the problem,” said Perry Wong, senior economist and one of the authors of the report. “People don’t understand that manufacturing is an integral part of the high-tech and clean-tech economy. If Californians want to build the future economic recovery on high-tech and retain highly skilled workers, they have to address the underlying issues of this sector now.”

Los Angeles was the nation’s biggest loser in employment during the past 12 months, according to figures released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Los Angeles area lost 240,100 jobs between July 2008 and the same month this year, the biggest decline in raw numbers anywhere in America. The second biggest losers were the Chicago and New York City markets with losses of 206,200 and 157,900 jobs, respectively.

California’s unemployment rate climbed to 11.5 percent in May, the highest in modern record-keeping, the U.S. Department of Labor has reported. Last month, California lost 68,900 jobs, and in the past 12 months a staggering 739,500 jobs have disappeared from the state. If you include part-time workers seeking full-time work plus workers who have given up looking for traditional employment, the jobless rate could be as high as 25 percent, exceeding the national unemployment levels in the worst part of the Great Depression. Economists project that the layoffs will continue to rise at least through the end of this year and probably into 2010, even if the economy starts to recover.

Most of the cutbacks came from government: 11,400 job cuts in federal government and 2,800 from state and local agencies, as municipalities scaled back their services to cope with the crippling effects of tax declines and budget cuts. Adding to the decline in government employment, every major job category lost jobs in May except for education and health care, which added 2,100. Construction companies cut 11,300 positions; manufacturing, 10,400; professional and business services, 10,900; retail, wholesale, transportation and utilities, 8,300; leisure and information, 8,100; and hospitality, 2,700.

As shocking as these numbers are, what is even more shocking is that the State Government doesn’t seem to be doing anything about it, as they are mostly concerned with their own survival. Early indications are that the Obama administration stimulus money is going mostly to save the jobs of existing State workers and bureaucrats, who are already doing relatively well. Very little of the funding seems to be going into job creation, economic development or innovative programs to help small business.

The Obama administration has refused requests for emergency assistance from senior State government officials. Calling California, “one of the biggest remaining threats to the economy” the Washington Post reported that top state officials have gone hat in hand to the administration, armed with dire warnings of a fast-approaching “fiscal meltdown” caused by a budget shortfall. Concern has grown inside the White House in recent weeks as California’s fiscal condition has worsened, leading to high-level administration meetings. But the Post reported that federal officials are worried that a bailout of California would set off a cascade of demands from other states. The administration is also concerned that California will enact massive cuts to close its deficit aggravating the state’s recession and further dragging down the national economy. After a series of meetings, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, top White House economists Lawrence Summers and Christina Romer, and other senior officials have decided that California could hold on a little longer and should get its budget in order rather than rely on a federal bailout.

California’s ports are getting quieter and the state’s huge export slump is getting worse. According to a report in the Sacramento Bee, exports from California fell 25.5 percent in April from a year earlier, figures compiled Wednesday by Sacramento trade consultant Jock O’Connel reveal. The shipments from California’s ports, totaling $9.25 billion, represent the worst April in four years. Earlier this year, exports were falling at about a 20 percent rate. O’Connell said the new figures show a turnaround is a ways off despite signs on the national level that the economy might bottom out soon. O’Connell told the Bee that the export decline was widespread. The volume of cargo leaving the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach was off 18 percent. Exports from San Francisco International Airport fell 34 percent. For the state, April marked the sixth straight month of declining exports. O’Connell added that imports at California’s ports fell 28.5 percent, demonstrating the global spread of the recession.

The respected publication “The Economist” has called California “the ungovernable State”. They certainly have a point- the Goverment here is a total mess, and voters are in a foul mood about tomorrow’s special election – and they should be, our government has failed us, and has many, many structural problems, but our leaders have failed us also. We have a government with absolutely no foresight, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, our part-time Governor, deserves his share of the blame. With all of California’s problems, our “lack of leadership” is certainly the most serious. Here are an excerpt and the full article can be read here:

ON MAY 19th Californians will go to the polls to vote on six ballot measures that are as important as they are confusing. If these measures fail, America’s biggest state will enter a full-blown financial crisis… A good outcome is no longer possible. California now has the worst bond rating among the 50 states. Income-tax receipts are coming in far below expectations. On May 11th Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor, sent a letter to the legislature warning it that, by his latest estimates, the state will face a budget gap of $15.4 billion if the ballot measures pass, $21.3 billion if they fail. Prisoners will have to be released, firefighters fired, and other services cut or eliminated. One way or the other, on May 20th Californians will have to begin discussing how to fix their broken state.

Only a minority of Californians bother to vote, and those voters tend to be older, whiter and richer than the state’s younger, browner and poorer population… Those voters, moreover, have over time “self-sorted” themselves into highly partisan districts: loony left in Berkeley or Santa Monica, for instance; rabid right in Orange County or parts of the Central Valley. Politicians have done the rest by gerrymandering bizarre boundaries around their supporters. The result is that elections are won during the Republican or Democratic primaries, rather than in run-offs between the two parties.
Representative democracy is only one half of California’s peculiar governance system. The other half, direct democracy, fails just as badly. California is one of 24 states that allow referendums, recalls and voter initiatives. But it is the only state that does not allow its legislature to override successful initiatives (called “propositions”) and has no sunset clauses that let them expire. It also uses initiatives far more, and more irresponsibly, than any other state.