Friday, June 19, 2009

California's Economic Crash - The Statistics Begin

Well, here we go. The initial article today from the Sacramento Bee:

California's unemployment rate climbed to 11.5 percent in May, the highest in modern record-keeping, the U.S. Department of Labor reported Friday.

The loss of another 69,000 jobs comes as a blow to the state....

In an earlier post I noted my fears: "California's Great Recession likely will begin 'in earnest' in July 2009. And unfortunately for the Obama Administration and the world, what was the world's 8th largest economy will drag everyone else down with it." This appears more and more likely particularly the way Arnold and the Legislature are handling conflicts over the collapsing state budget.

The article reports that the largest job declines in the month were in the government sector, down by 14,200 jobs. It also says that every other sector saw losses except education and health services.

The reality is that in May, the state government and local governments hadn't even begun serious layoffs. Those will appear in July-September statistics. School layoffs may start to show up in June, but we won't really know how many cumulative job losses there were in the education sector until September. And the health sector job losses will likely not show up until September-November.

The impact on the private sector may not be felt until after September, but my opinon is that it will be of major significance to the national economy.

I hope I'm wrong.

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