For 91.9 KVCR News, I’m Madison Aument and this is Economics IE. I’m breaking form a bit for this holiday week and give y’all a general update on what’s going on with the Inland Empire’s economy this month.
Let’s start with the jobs numbers… October saw some modest payroll gains… but it wasn’t enough to lower Riverside County’s unemployment rate… That’s according to figures released by the California Employment Development Department. Based on estimates from the EDD the jobless rate in Riverside County was 5.6 percent. That’s the same as September.
But those numbers are up slightly from a year ago when Riverside’s unemployment was 5.4 percent. Mecca, Coachella and Cherry Valley had some of the highest rates of unemployment. The combined unemployment rate for Riverside and San Bernardino counties was 5.5%, up from 5.4% in September.
Data for both counties showed payrolls expanded most in the trade and transportation sector which added some 5500 positions. A combined 13,700 jobs were added to the other sectors like agriculture, construction and hospitality. Manufacturing in the region cut about a thousand jobs.
With jobs in mind, Governor Gavin Newsom just announced his plans to create more of them. Newsom says families across the state are being impacted by economic challenges like inflation.
“Some people talk about, ‘This economy is booming, inflation is cooling, lowest unemployment in our lifetimes. ...’ All that may be true, but people don’t feel that way. They feel like the economy is not supportive,” said Newsom.
His office launched the California Jobs First Economic Blueprint… he’s calling it a bottom up strategy for creating good-paying jobs and regional economic development. The blueprint will roll out in January.
Meanwhile in business news, last week Voltu Motors Inc., a company that is building new commercial electric trucks announced it will locate its global headquarters in the city of Riverside. Riverside is set to receive 20 of the first vehicles to use in its utilities, streets and parks departments.
Here’s Riverside Mayor Pro Tem Jim Perry…
“We look forward to Voltu creating new skilled and professional manufacturing engineering and research and development jobs right here in Riverside. We are proud to bring these new jobs to Riverside to use the state of the art green technology to support the green economy,” said Perry.
And finally as we head into Thanksgiving… drivers will pay less for gas than any Thanksgiving since 2020. In the IE, the average price per gallon is $4.32 … that’s 56 cents lower than last year. Well, thanks for joining us for Economics IE. I’ll be back here next Monday with a new episode. In the meantime, you can find this segment and others on our website, at kvcrnews.org/econie. Support for this segment comes from the Nowak Family. For KVCR News, I'm Madison Aument.
