The County's unemployment rate (not adjusted for seasonality) dropped from 14.9% in March to 14.1% in April. The labor force declined by 6,400 in April, following an unusually strong growth of 9,700 in March. (March has traditionally been a month when labor force increases temporarily, thanks to spring breaks, farming, and the tax season, but this year's increase was far above the normal rate.) The number of employed residents rose by 1,600 in April, after another 5,500 gain in March. The number of unemployed residents declined by 8,000 in April as a result of the drastic decline in labor force. Since the decline in the unemployment rate is in large part due to the decline in labor force, this is not really a sign of economic recovery.
Link to original data: http://www.calmis.ca.gov/file/indhist/sanbrhws.xls
Read the whole newsletter at http://sbcounty.info/eu_archive/20100608.pdf
Link to original data: http://www.calmis.ca.gov/file/indhist/rive$hws.xls
According to DataQuick, the County's median home sale price slipped back to $150,000 in April. For the first four months of 2010, the median sale price has fluctuated between $150,000 and $152,000. The rush to qualify for the $8,000 homebuying credit caused sales to soar to 2,955 and 2,744 in March and April, respectively. With the end of the federal homebuying incentive program, sales volume may decline starting in May. In California, lower-priced units (<$300,000) are now selling very quickly (3.3-month supply), while the sales of higher-end homes are still somewhat restricted by the credit crunch in the jumbo loan market (9.7-month supply for those over $1 million). More recently, however, the jumbo loan market seems to have "thawed" a bit, and the unsold inventory index declined from 18.7-month supply in 4/'09 to 9.7-month supply in 4/'10.
In April, permits for 84 residential housing units were issued, compared to 260 issued in February and 121 in March. All 84 units were single-family residences (SFRs). (The revised March data showed that all 121 in March were SFRs also. April is the second consecutive month in which no permits for multi-family units were issued.) Activities were mostly concentrated in six cities: Rancho Cucamonga (23), Victorville and Twentynine Palms (9 each), Montclair (8), Fontana (7), and Chino Hills (5), and the unincorporated areas added another 16.
There were no new retail nor industrial building permits issued in April. Commercial office permit(s) valued at $309,000 was issued in Victorville. In March, we saw building permits issued in all three major categories of nonresidential construction for the first time in a year.
The total wage and salary employment in the Inland Empire metro area declined by 19,500 in January. This followed three consecutive months of increases totaling 12,300 jobs -- meaning that all gains of 2009Q4 were more than wiped out. January's employment figure was 6.2% below the 1/'09 level, the lowest year-over-year decline in a year. The construction sector lost another 2,000 jobs in January. Compared to its peak in 6/'06, this sector has lost 56% of its job base. The manufacturing sector lost another 700 jobs in January. Manufacturing employment was lower by 33% from its peak in 6/'06. The logistics sector lost 1,000 jobs, thanks to the end of holiday shopping-related transportation needs. Retail employment was lower by 6,100, erasing the 5,600 jobs gained in November and December.
Expect another "shock" on the job front soon. The upcoming Census, which utilizes 1.2 million temporary workers, may help drive down the national unemployment rate by up to 0.8 percentage points. Most of those workers will be released after April.
According to DataQuick, the County's median home sale price declined slightly to $150,000 in January. Sales volume dropped significantly, from 2,934 in December to 2,252 in January. Sales of homes tend to drop in January, but this time the market was probably skewed by the first expiration of the first-time home purchase tax credit.
DataQuick press release: http://www.dqnews.com/Articles/2010/News/California/Southern-CA/RRSCA100216.aspx
In January, 136 residential building permits were issued, compared to 150 issued in 12/'09. Of those, 117 were single-family residences (SFRs) and 19 were multi-family units. SFR activities were mostly concentrated in 4 cities: Fontana (26), Victorville (23), Adelanto (11), and Apple Valley (10). All 19 multi-family units were in Fontana.
For the first time in five months, San Bernardino County saw a permit issued for one of the three main categories of nonresidential construction. While there were still no commercial office nor retail building permits issued in January, there was a little life in the industrial sector -- some new equipment for a mining operation in the High Desert. For commercial office, it was the eighth consecutive month of no activity. For the past 17 months, there were 13 months in which no commercial office building permits were issued. For retail, it was the fifth consecutive month of no activity.Passenger traffic at LA/Ontario International Airport (ONT) rose slightly in December to 398,137 passengers and finished the year with 4.8 million passengers.
Data from LAWA: http://www.lawa.org/uploadedfiles/ONT/statistics/tcom-1209.pdf
In December, container traffic at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach broke the one million TEU mark for the sixth consecutive month with 1,030,227 TEUs handled. The volume was 4.0% above the 12/'08 level -- the first year-over-year increase in a year.
Data from Port of Los Angeles: http://www.portoflosangeles.org/Stats/stats_2009.htm
Data from Port of Long Beach: http://www.polb.com/economics/stats/yearly_teus.asp
San Bernardino County's unemployment rate (not adjusted for seasonality) declined slightly to 13.6% in December. (November's rate was revised upwards from 13.8% to 14.3%.) The labor force declined by 7,400 -- extremely unexpected since people should be out there looking for seasonal jobs. From the 3/'09 peak of 888,500, the County's reported labor force has fallen by 20,500, or 2.3%. The number of employed residents declined by 200 in December, which is extremely bad compared to the usual trend. Because of the large reduction in labor force, the unemployment rate declined as a result. Are people giving up or moving out? It's likely a combination of both.
Data from Cal EDD: http://www.calmis.ca.gov/file/indhist/sanbrhws.xls
Data from Cal EDD: http://www.calmis.ca.gov/file/indhist/rive$hws.xls
There's much talk about the creation of tons of "Green Jobs" to help get people employed. In his State of the Union address, President Obama said,
"But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country. It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development. It means continued investment in advanced biofuels and clean coal technologies. And, yes, it means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America."
Yet the current trends suggests that the number of green jobs may disappoint many of us.
More production/extraction of fossil fuels will generate some jobs, but they are so specialized that nearly all displaced workers will have to get specialized training before they can handle those jobs. And if the exploration companies do not have spare equipment for them, it's very unlikely that those companies would invest in the training of new workers and new equipment if they feel that such political support for fossil fuel production will be short-lived. They will be better off just hold onto their existing sources and get more profit from the more limited supply.
If fossil fuel prices are lowered because of more production, then this inevitably reduces the attractiveness of alternative fuel. This may therefore slightly hinder the development and investment in alternative fuel. Conversely, making fossil fuel more expensive will help the adoption of alternative fuel, but that will most likely have negative impacts on jobs in many other sectors of the economy. This is a tradeoff that is nearly impossible to avoid.
Some "green" activities may actually reduce employment in the long run. For instance, converting a lawn to rockscape removes the need for a lawnmower, and could reduce the number of jobs involved in power generation, water transportation, garbage removal and disposal. Solar water heaters reduce the demand for natural gas and that may reduce jobs in gas exploration and transportation if solar water heaters are more widespread. Those potential reductions in employment are almost never considered in "green jobs" studies.
We must understand that increased environmental protection both creates and destroys jobs. Jobs are the collateral impact of environmental protection, not the reason to pursue it. A good environmental protection policy needs to take into account all costs, including the "human costs" which may include a reduction in jobs, recreation options, and convenience.
It's more likely that the government will choose to pursue environmental regulations without full regard of their impact on the businesses, and the loss of competitiveness will cost U.S. jobs at a time of high unemployment. California manufacturers are already worried about the potential impact of AB32 on their competitiveness. An ill-designed national program may extend that pain to the rest of the country and cost the U.S. more jobs. Since the effect of environmental protection, particularly efforts to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases, is global in nature, such a program needs to be global so the participants are not bearing excessive burdens while non-participants benefit from their sacrifices, both on the climate front and on increased business competitiveness.
According to California Dept. of Finance, the County's population grew by just 9,952 between 7/1/08 and 7/1/09. That's the first time in at least 29 years that the County's population grew by fewer than 10,000 people. The growth rate of 0.48% is the lowest among the seven counties of Southern California, and is nearly half the rate of the State's average (0.93%). What's more worrisome is the trend in net migration (people moving in minus people moving out), which was -11,500 during that period. Traditionally the County draws in large number of migrants, both domestically and internationally. However, since the housing crisis began, the County has seen a worsening trend of negative net domestic migration. Although the overall growth rate remained positive, the large amount of out-migration means that demand for housing may be lower, which will have an impact on the speed of the housing market recovery. Migration has much larger impact on housing demand than natural increase [births minus deaths].
Link to data: http://www.dof.ca.gov/research/demographic/reports/estimates/e-2/2000-09/