Employment Los Angeles County

Providing strong evidence that Los Angeles County is participating more fully in California's economic growth, officials said Monday that the county's jobless rate plunged in January, to 6.0% from 6.7% the previous month, just a notch above the statewide rate of 5.9%. Moreover, revised annual data from the Employment Development Department showed that Los Angeles County's payroll job growth ran at 2.5% last year, more than the 1.8% previously estimated.

"Good morning, sir! Good morning, sir!" yelled the 60 men in near-unison as the driver of a black pickup pulled up to the Costa Mesa Job Center. Sitting on a metal chair and bundled up against the morning cold, each man leaned forward and raised a number--given out in the order the workers signed up--on a blue piece of paper. It was 7 a.m., and the contractor needed a handyman for six hours at $10 per hour. But the job required an English speaker; all but a few hands dropped.

Claudia Melgosa is fast becoming a welfare success story. In seven months, the 27-year-old mother of two has landed work, vaulted to a better job at a Glendale storage company and moved up to a $9-an-hour customer service position. Easing herself off public assistance after five years, Melgosa represents a transformation that state welfare officials hope to replicate thousands of times in coming years, as new laws force recipients into the work force in staggering numbers.

"Good morning, sir. Good morning, sir," yelled the 60 men in unison as the driver of a black pickup pulled up to the Costa Mesa Job Center. Sitting on metal chairs and bundled up against the morning cold, the men leaned forward and raised their numbers--given out in the order the workers signed up--on blue pieces of paper. It was 7 a.m., and the contractor needed a handyman for six hours at $10 an hour. But the job required an English speaker; all but a few hands dropped.

Although building rail cars and buses may offer some long-term hope for Los Angeles County's beleaguered manufacturing sector, some experts say such transit work promises little quick relief to the area's thousands of unemployed aerospace and auto workers. The money is there, as Southern California expects to spend about $140 billion on transit improvements over the coming 30 years.

Los Angeles County has established a 24-hour job hot line that features information about openings available in all 38 departments. "When a person looking for a county job calls this number, they will be connected by phone to a menu of employment opportunities," said Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke. Officials are hoping the hot line will simplify the job seeker's search.

California employers bucked the national hiring slowdown in February and added 40,200 workers, reducing the state's jobless rate to a 30-year low of 4.6%. The employment report released by state officials Friday reflects how California's economic recovery continues to catch up with the record national business expansion.

The number of manufacturing jobs in Los Angeles County is expected to fall slightly this year, local economists conclude in a report to be released Friday, but healthy employment gains elsewhere in the region are expected to mitigate any ripple effects in Southern California's bounding economy. For the first time in three years, manufacturing jobs are likely to drop 0.

"Good morning, sir! Good morning, sir!" yelled the 60 men in near-unison as the driver of a black pickup pulled up to the Costa Mesa Job Center. Sitting on a metal chair and bundled up against the morning cold, each man leaned forward and raised a number--given out in the order the workers signed up--on a blue piece of paper. It was 7 a.m., and the contractor needed a handyman for six hours at $10 per hour. But the job required an English speaker; all but a few hands dropped.

Boeing Co. will announce as early as today a sweeping overhaul of its employment and facilities plans, and speculation is high that the company will add a new jet assembly line in Long Beach. But the aerospace company may spurn California efforts to host assembly of the potentially lucrative Joint Strike Fighter if it wins the project.

Working at the epicenter of the Los Angeles Internet slowdown, Brenda Arechiga watched friends lose their jobs as Hollywood dot-coms went dot-bomb. But when she was called into the Venice offices of her entertainment information Web site and let go in a round of layoffs a few weeks ago, "I was just astounded," Arechiga said. "I was in a daze. I thought I was one of my CEO's key people.

The effort to find affordable licensed child care continues to frustrate low-income parents in Los Angeles County and, as a result, many have either lost jobs or not looked for employment, a new survey has found. In fact, most poor families give up looking for licensed providers and end up relying on family or friends to care for their children, said the study, Transforming Child Care From the Ground Up, released Wednesday by the Human Services Alliance, a Los Angeles social advocacy group.

Despite a sharp drop-off in the nation's economic growth next year, Los Angeles County should create more jobs in 2001 than this year, garnering a greater share than some of its neighboring counties, economists at Cal State Fullerton said Wednesday. In their annual forecast, the economists said Los Angeles County's economy appears to have gained momentum this year, while growth in its neighboring counties has slowed.

For Raul Ovidio Paez and fellow day laborers gathered Friday outside a building-supply store on West Slauson Avenue in Los Angeles, the issue seemed obvious: Why should police chase down job-seekers when there is serious crime to respond to? "We're just looking for jobs; we're not committing any crimes," Paez, a 30-year-old native of El Salvador, said as he and others waited for chamba (work) from passing motorists outside the HomeBase store in Ladera Heights.

For the second year in a row, the Los Angeles County apparel industry lost more than 5,000 jobs in 1999 as garment assembly work continued to flee south to lower-wage factories in Mexico and as retailers stocked more of their racks with less expensive imported clothing, according to a report to be released today by local economists.

More people are employed in several design-related fields in Los Angeles County than in five other major U.S. metropolitan areas, the county's economic development agency said in a study being released today.

A plan to create a state-backed, targeted employment zone in the Antelope Valley took a big step forward Tuesday when the final piece of the region's application was approved by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. The proposal, which must also be approved by the state, would add nine neighborhoods in Lancaster, Palmdale and unincorporated north Los Angeles County to an existing zone. Employers who hire people living within its boundaries would receive significant tax breaks.

California's economic engine continued to pick up steam in February, as employers added another 36,300 new jobs, pushing the unemployment rate to its lowest level in nearly eight years, the state reported Friday. Job growth was broad-based, with all major industry sectors, including manufacturing, services and retailing, boosting payrolls. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell from January's revised 6.0%, to 5.

California employers bucked the national hiring slowdown in February and added 40,200 workers, reducing the state's jobless rate to a 30-year low of 4.6%. The employment report released by state officials Friday reflects how California's economic recovery continues to catch up with the record national business expansion.