Two national surveys released recently provided very bad news for California’s 2 million unemployed workers.
The first survey, Best/Worst States for Business, was released by CEO Magazine. The survey of 650 Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) found California the worst state in which to do business, a ranking California has held for the past eight years. When America’s CEOs deem California the worst state to do business, there is little chance their companies will be making job creation investments in California.
The following is a representative sample of comments from participating CEOs in the often cited survey:
"California is the worst! They are doing everything possible to drive a business out of their state. If it were not for the climate, they would have lost half their population.
"California regulations, taxes and costs will leave only tech, life sciences and entertainment as viable. If you aren’t an elitist, no room here for the middle or working classes.
"California treats business owners like criminals. California has different overtime policies for its own employees vs. private sector.
"California’s labor regulation is a job killer. We will be moving our business out of the state, which will lose hundreds of jobs simply due to the poor regulatory environment.
"California should secede from the union - it is like doing business in a foreign country, it has its own exchange rate, and its regulation is crazy.
The second survey, Best Cities for Jobs 2012, was published by Forbes Magazine. To determine the best cities for jobs, Forbes ranked all 398 U.S. metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) based on employment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) covering November 2000 through January 2012. Rankings are based on recent growth trends, mid-term growth, long-term growth and the region’s momentum.
The highest ranked California SMA is Hanford-Corcoran as the 36th best city for finding a job. Three other California SMAs made the top 100; San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Bakersfield-Delano and San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City. On the other hand, Texas had 20 SMAs in the top 100 and six in the top 10.
According to the report authors: “So amidst all the good news, which big cities are still doing badly, or even relatively worse? Sadly, many of the places still declining are located in our home state of California, including Los Angeles (59th place among the biggest metro areas), Sacramento (60th), and just across the Bay from Silicon Valley, Oakland (63rd). Only the old, and to date still not recovering, industrial towns of Providence, R.I. (64th), and Birmingham-Hoover, Ala. (dead last at No. 65), did worse."...Jack Stewart is President of the California Manufacturers & Technology Association cmta.net. Named to the President's position March of 1998, Mr. Stewart has been with the Association since 1992.
