Lt. Gov.'s economic development plan is bold & broad -- now make every job count with action

Posted by Gino DiCaro, Vice President, Communications on July 29, 2011

Today Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom released a California economic development and job growth plan as his first major policy move since he was elected.

Congratulations are in order for Newsom and his report. He is showing he is serious about growing our job base by making the state attractive to manufacturing and other high wage sectors.

California's economy needs large scale job creation in every sector. Our state must catch up and once again outpace the country's economic growth. This will require aggressive action not seen in California for over a decade. It will also depend on developing the state's existing job base and employers as a means to California's expansion. In the past, Newsom has said many times, that "95 percent of growth is organic," meaning it's easier to grow an existing California company than start a new one. We could not agree more.

For the past few years, economic development in California has comprised of picking and providing for one winning sector, but consequentially leaving many other losers, often times existing industries, such as manufacturing and other sectors. Every job should count in California.

While the politically challenged task of growing the state's economy is immense, the essentials that any employer needs for growth are simple: predictable costs, competitive costs, adequate infrastructure, access to skilled workers and regulatory certainty.

The California manufacturing community -- and it's 1.2 million strong job base -- is anxious to work with Lt. Gov. Newsom and Governor Brown to restart California's economic engine.

Download Newsom's Economic Growth and Competitiveness Report

Download CMTA's vision document

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California should lead in all jobs, not just two percent of them

Posted by Gino DiCaro, Vice President, Communications on July 19, 2011

During a recent California Energy Commission proceeding on our clean energy goals, it was recommended that job creation be included as a metric for measuring the success of clean energy policies. This will only be meaningful if we count all the jobs that will be lost as a result of a policy. Therefore our job creation goal, and the metric to measure it, should only count net new jobs.

This prompted us to look at the Brookings Institution's recently released report on green jobs -- Sizing the Clean Economy. The report stated that California leads the country in the "green" sector, boasting 332,000 jobs. To put things in perspective, that number accounts for only two percent of the state's entire job base and about one job for every 115 people. Further it doesn't make up for the state's overall jobs loss, nor does it make up for the state's high wage job losses.

Green job definitions vary widely, depending on who sets the criteria. For instance, the Brookings report maintains that public mass transit operators are in fact "green". Even with the broadest definitions, the green economy on its own will not catapult California into its next great economic boom. The emerging green sector is an important part of California’s overall economy, but will only grow and succeed if California’s investment climate is competitive with other states and nations.

California can’t count on large scale job growth without a predictable and competitive environment for a diverse range of investors and employers. "Green" mandates and subsidies increase costs and force reduced output on existing employers, making other parts of our economy inefficient and less competitive. That's a tough pill for existing employer groups to swallow when the goal of their sacrifice is to force feed a two percent sector of the workforce that can’t survive without ongoing incentives and subsidies.

We compared some of California's high wage sector employment statistics to the new green jobs numbers. Basically we found that our green jobs do not net out our losses. Here's how the numbers broke down (Click image for larger pdf):

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Recasting AB 32 as a job creator is political snake oil and breathtakingly naive

Posted by Jack Stewart, President on June 16, 2010

CMTA released a new report on Wednesday -- The Truth About Green Jobs and California -- on how policies adopted for the purpose of growing green jobs can have counterproductive affects on the economy and cause overall job loss rather than job growth. The report was written by the California Lutheran University's Center for Economic Research and Forecasting (CERF) and is co-authored by CERF Director Bill Watkins and Joel Kotkin, Distinguished Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University.

Of late, AB32 is being promoted as a job creation tool rather than a costly environmental regulatory scheme to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Recasting AB 32 as an economic development strategy is breathtakingly naive.

California should be the home of clean tech innovation and manufacturing. For that to happen, our state should focus on creating permanent green jobs, rather than short term jobs that survive only with government subsidies and damage the state's larger economy. The real solution to solving California's economic woes is to restore a healthy business climate by cutting job killer regulations and allowing the demand for green products to be translated into jobs in California rather than jobs in Texas and China.

Take the time to read through this report to help California get this thing right.

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'Green' countertop manufacturer's inability to compete in CA keeping it from investment cash

Posted by Gino DiCaro, Vice President, Communications on April 30, 2010

California manufacturers can barely compete domestically and globally. This goes for our 'greenest' producers as well. This was underscored today in a San Francisco Business times article by Lindsay Riddell.

Riddell explained a developing story on Richmond-based Vetrazzo -- a manufacturer that makes sustainable countertops from recycled glass.

It looks like the 22-employee Vetrazzo would like to grow in California but investors won't pony up the $2 million cash unless they move to where they can compete.

Click here for her story.

Vetrazzo website.

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States starting to eat CA's cleantech lunch

Posted by Gino DiCaro, Vice President, Communications on Aug. 14, 2009

Joel Makower, founder of cleantech research and publishing firm Clean Edge, recently remarked that other states are "starting to eat California's lunch" when it comes to attracting and retaining clean technology companies. This point was called out on page 25 of the CALSTART Industry report on the state's barriers and opportunities for economic and environmental leadership.

In the same report, venture investor, Vinod Khosla warned that high costs and slow permitting processes were threatening to drive many advanced biofuels companies out of California.

In another study recently released, the Milken institute took a look at high tech manufacturing growth. Of course many of the cleantech industries come out of this particular sector. The results were stunning when it came to California's major competitor, Texas. Their high tech manufacturing as a percentage of GSP grew by 86 percent in 7 years. California's grew by only 7 percent.

Meanwhile many leaders and policymakers either ignore the impediments to growth and some even say their is no reason for concern. If that continues, we deserve to go lunchless.

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