Jobs

The U.S. foreign-born population has risen to its highest level since 1920, with 13% of all those living in the nation in 2010 having been born elsewhere, a new report from the Census Bureau shows. Forty million of those residing in the U.S. in 2010 were born in other countries, up from 31 million, or 11% of the total, a decade earlier. The foreign-born share of the population dropped between 1920 and 1970, hitting a low of 4.7% in 1970, before rising again for several decades. But that growth has slowed in recent years as immigration has dropped, census officials said Thursday.

A hiring surge led by California's hallmark industries ? high tech, movies and tourism ? generated nearly 100,000 net new jobs in February and offered the strongest sign yet that the state economy is on the mend. The 96,500-job jump was the biggest monthly increase since the current record system began in 1990, state officials said. California had added a paltry 700 jobs in January. Some economists were surprised by the huge uptick and cautioned that it could be revised downward.

Following a week of uncertainty, a federal bankruptcy judge in Seattle confirmed that actor Patrick Dempsey beat out bidders such as Starbucks to win control of Tully's Coffee. The stud known as McDreamy emerged triumphant after a court hearing Friday in which Judge Karen Overstreet decided that the “Grey's Anatomy” actor could take over bankrupt Tully's for $9.15 million. “I'm thrilled that we prevailed,” Dempsey said in a statement. “From Day One, we have been focused on saving jobs, keeping Tully's independent and infusing new life and enthusiasm into the company.” Dempsey's company Global Baristas - which pitched its interest in Tully's as a way to save the company's 500 jobs - had gone up in an auction earlier this month against six other suitors, many with larger offers.

Teenagers looking for summer work will have a better chance of finding it, as an improving job market helps ease competition for low-skilled, low-paying jobs, according to outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The employment environment for high-schoolers and other young folk has made a dramatic recovery since falling to record lows in 2010, when the number of 16- to 19-year-olds working during the summer months was at its slimmest level since 1949. Last year, youth employment from May through June perked up 13.2%, or by 1.08 million jobs.

WASHINGTON - A sweeping bipartisan plan to overhaul the nation's immigration system headed to the Senate floor after a key committee approved it Tuesday, but not before tilting the bill to the political right with amendments designed to attract more Republican support. The centerpiece of the legislation - a 13-year path to citizenship for many of the 11 million people now without legal status - survived intact, setting the stage for what could be the biggest victory in a generation for advocates of immigrant rights.

Re "School posts may be tough to fill," June 11 Regarding the search to replace three chancellors of public colleges and universities, The Times quotes Scott Himelstein, president of the community colleges Board of Governors, as saying, "I think the governor and Legislature are very clear in not wanting to consider any raises in executive compensation. " It's a great sentiment but I have zero confidence that it will happen. There will be extensive national searches, and when the final candidates are selected, the public statements will say that the salaries offered were justified and necessary to attract the best person for each of these exceedingly difficult and complex positions.

It's graduation time again, and according to the National Center for Education Statistics, about 1.78 million students will walk across a stage and pick up a college diploma. Then they will face terrifying statistics about employment, pressure to make their 20s the best years of their lives, and slogans that suggest that what you do right after college may not matter anyway. What not enough graduates are hearing, however, is that - recession or not - our 20s are life's developmental sweet spot.

With tourism on the rise in downtown Los Angeles, construction is set to begin on a $172-million Marriott hotel complex that has even bigger aspirations than when it was announced almost a year ago. Downtown's thriving hotel market can be seen in the long-anticipated development near the L.A. Live entertainment complex and Staples Center, which has grown by a floor and 15 additional rooms from the original plan. Now set to be 23 stories, the tower on Olympic Boulevard will house a 174-room Courtyard by Marriott and a 218-room Residence Inn by Marriott under one roof when it opens in summer 2014.

The biggest mistake people make when talking about the outsourcing of U.S. jobs by U.S. companies is to treat it as a moral issue. Sure, it's immoral to abandon your loyal American workers in search of cheap labor overseas. But the real problem with outsourcing, if you don't think it through, is that it can wreck your business and cost you a bundle. Case in point: Boeing Co. and its 787 Dreamliner. The next-generation airliner is billions of dollars over budget and about three years late; the first paying passengers won't be boarding until this fall, if then.

Re "To create jobs, U.S. must spend," Opinion, April 5 Dimitri B. Papadimitriou assumes that government spending creates growth. It may create growth in the drone-building industry or in public pensions, but we have to question whether that's good for the economy. Papadimitriou compares adding to our deficit to the hopeful action of a private borrower getting a home mortgage. There are important differences. A home buyer can refinance only a few times, while the government can add debt endlessly.