Labor Day 2014: Let's Talk Jobs

by Gary Toebben

With the steady news coverage about Mayor Garcetti’s minimum wage proposal for the City of Los Angeles, two important stories stood in the shadows. The first is that the California economy is improving; and the second is that there are still thousands of unemployed Californians, especially in L.A. County. 

On Labor Day 2014, the State of California finally had more people employed than before the start of the Great Recession. It took seven years to regain those jobs, but it finally happened. The citizens of L.A. County are not as fortunate. We still have 50,000 fewer jobs in L.A. County than we did prior to the Great Recession and our unemployment exceeds 8 percent. Nearly one-half million L.A. County residents are without work and many more are working fewer hours than they would like. 

Steve Lopez painted a poignant story with his Sunday column in the Los Angeles Times about local residents who are unemployed. It highlighted the pain these individuals face because we, as a community, have not created the new jobs they need by encouraging businesses to expand. These unemployed individuals have listened to elected officials talk about creating jobs when running for office, but they have yet to see a difference. 

Businesses have also become tired of seeing promises by elected officials to focus on job creation replaced by more regulations and wage moratoriums that simply make it more costly to stay in business in the town they love. Small businesses cut to the bone to survive the Great Recession and they too are looking for hope for the future.  

Every day should be Labor Day in the City and County of Los Angeles. Every day we should measure our progress by what we have done to create new jobs so that Steve Lopez and his fellow journalists have fewer persons who are unemployed to write about next year. 

And that's The Business Perspective.