CERF Blog

I was in Peoria yesterday to give a talk to the City Council. Peoria is a suburb of Phoenix, but it is intent on having its own identity and economy. The City has a population pushing 150,000 spread over an amazing 180 square miles. They like their open space in Peoria. It’s a great looking… Read more

Dan Hamilton and Kjersti Framnes The California March unemployment rate increased to 12.6 percent from 12.5 percent in February. Since August of 2009 the unemployment rate has climbed 60 basis points, and there has not been any interim month of recovery. The unemployment rate would likely be even greater if not for net domestic out-migration.… Read more

Ventura California’s City Manager, Rick Cole, has had two recent pieces at newgeography.com, here and here, titled “The War for Jobs.” In these pieces, he outlines some important changes in California cities’ environment, and what Ventura is doing to attract or grow jobs, because, as he says, governments don’t create jobs. Rick’s right. Governments don’t… Read more

The February United States jobs report sent the equity markets up this morning while respected commentators like Edmund Phelps, (Columbia, Economics Nobel in 2006), remark that they worry that the “recovery” might not have legs. It always a bit odd to discuss growth that is less negative but that is the situation we are in… Read more

Data released today reveal a United States economy that remains unsettled. Mass Layoffs The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ report shows a 2 percent uptick in January seasonally-adjusted mass layoffs from December. The jump in mass layoff initial claimants for unemployment insurance was even larger at 19 percent over December. Gross Job Gains This report, which… Read more

I’ve seen lots of proposals on how to accelerate our economic recovery, but I haven’t seen any investment tax credit proposals. Maybe there are some out there, but I haven’t seen them. The idea has merit, and now might be a good time to implement it. Business investment has been extraordinarily weak for a long… Read more

The January United States jobs report contains mixed results that, to us, provide hints of a recovery to come. More on the recovery later. The bad news from the jobs report first: long term unemployed persons, (those who have been unemployed for 27 weeks or longer), climbed by about 500,000 to just under 6.5 million… Read more

The Oregon Employment Department’s Labor Market Information System released December 2009 jobs and employment data for Oregon’s counties today. In most respects, Central Oregon’s labor market is not significantly changed from November, and very close to our forecast. The Bend MSA (Deschutes County) seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate fell from 14.2 percent in November to 14 percent… Read more

The December California jobs report, out today, shows that the seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate held steady from November at 12.4 percent. The year-on-year job declines subsided from November’s -4.2 percent to -3.9 percent in December. The annualized month-on-month job decline, which is very volatile, worsened from -1.5 percent in November to -3.2 percent in December. Almost two-thirds… Read more

Today’s Oregon jobs report for December shows mixed results in the State’s job market.  The OES’s Labor Market Information System provided the December estimates for the state this morning and will provide them for Oregon’s counties on Friday morning.  The State’s Year-over-year job losses are improving a bit, from a loss of about five percent… Read more