Madison Aument
For 91.9 KVCR News, I’m Madison Aument. This is Economics IE. Each month, IEGO, a nonprofit focused on economic growth in the Inland Empire, publishes the IE Labor Market Pulse. The newsletter analyzes monthly employment data to give readers insight into the IE labor market. Today, I’m speaking with Matt Mena, Executive Director of IEGO, about last month’s job numbers. So, what is the labor market data telling us about May?
Matt Mena
The labor market is telling us that we’ve added 3,000 jobs in May. So that’s better than what I think most people had thought, if you’re listening to CNN or any other national news. But if you dive deeper, we’ve also lost about 2,000 jobs in the region. So our labor force has actually shrunk as well. It’s kind of a mixed bag, as we’ve seen over the past couple of months. But all in all, I think there’s still opportunity.
Madison Aument
What sectors have we gained those jobs in?
Matt Mena
The sectors that we’ve gained jobs in are government services and business services. We’ve added approximately 1,000 jobs in government services—so that’s like teachers, public service employees, counties, and local municipalities. Then in business services, it’s about 800 jobs. So those are all pretty good indicators that, one, we’re doing well in our region, but also that there’s still investment happening.
Madison Aument
And where are those job losses?
Matt Mena
The job losses this month have been in the logistics sector—the transportation and utilities sector. It’s been kind of the trend since January. All in all, we’ve lost about 5,000 jobs in the logistics sector since January, which is something that I think we in the region do have to worry about because that’s long been our highest employer. And that’s also where a lot of the initiatives are going, so those are all things that we have to keep in mind as we start planning for the future.
Madison Aument
Yeah, it seems like where we’re gaining jobs and where we’re losing jobs has kind of been a trend over the past few months. Is there any particular reason you’re finding for why the government sector is gaining jobs while the logistics industry is losing them?
Matt Mena
There is. There’s not much to indicate why we’re seeing the government job growth just yet. We have seen shrinkage in funding from the federal government, which should tell us that there will be job losses there as well. But as we continue to gain jobs in government, that’s always a good sign. It could be that we have that “blue tsunami” that people have been talking about for the past 10 years. It may be happening, and that could be where we’re seeing the job gains—people retiring out and individuals getting hired in. As for the logistics sector, it’s interesting. The knee-jerk reaction would be tariffs, but we haven’t really seen the biggest hits from tariffs just yet. We could be seeing automation and new technologies coming into play. Also, as we start to talk about workers' rights and things like that, we’ve seen some logistics facilities reduce hiring as they move forward and invest in automation. Those are all things to keep in mind when we talk about the positives and negatives from each of these movements.
Madison Aument
How would you interpret the current job numbers and the health of the region’s job market?
Matt Mena
The unemployment rate is still right around 4.8 to 4.9%, so that means we have virtually zero unemployment. As I’ve said in the past couple of months, for a strong economy, you need around 5%. You don’t want to go any more than that or any less. It’s good, but it doesn’t necessarily mean anything is going wrong. The thing to look at is the approximately 2% shrinkage in the labor force. That means folks aren’t actually going out and looking for jobs—they’re either retiring or moving out of the region or the state. That’s really the indicator we need to focus on. It also suggests people might stop looking for jobs because they need childcare or other wraparound services to be employed. So really, what we need to look at is not just training but also other aspects of working and participating in the economy. For single moms or dads, going to work a 9-to-5 job can be pretty tough without childcare. Those are things we need to consider as we grow the economy and future-proof it moving forward.
Madison Aument
You can find this segment and a link to the IE Labor Market Pulse at kvcrnews.org. This segment is funded by the Nowak Family. For KVCR News, I’m Madison Aument.