What jobs are in OC?

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LA/OC is a middle market town. You won't see most of the employers here up at the top of the F500 list, but with an economy that supported in excess of 15 million people here prior to the real estate bubble, apparentely there is some work to be done here. Maybe because of the nice weather, the folks here are a little more entrepenural, and try to avoid the cube-farm environments you will find at most of those Bay Area companies. Don't count me as one of those, however. I proudly let my geek badge dangle from its belt clip at happy hour!
 
Don't count Disney in this discussion. Their high-paying jobs are in LA...the OC jobs are mostly minimum wage or barely above. And their turnover rate last time I looked was over 100%. My husband worked at the Disneyland Hotel in college, and he had to pay dues to a hotel workers union as well as a performers union since he was a "cast member." Anyhow, if you work for Disney in OC, chances are you don't take home very much. Unless you are one of the exceptions (management, etc) you certainly can't afford the house prices here.

Hmmm...has anybody seen how hard the median in Anaheim zips has been tanking lately? FYI, 92802 is a neighboring zip that butts up against Disney property.

http://www.ocregister.com/money/ocregister-median-www-1932543-sales-http
 
How many biotech companies are around here? Are the same forces at work in the article below going to cause any pain for the local OC employers?

Bristol-Myers to Eliminate 4,800 Jobs

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/business/06bristol.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Generic competition, a dearth of new drugs and a more safety-conscious posture by the Food and Drug Administration are among factors that have led to the announcements of at least 35,000 industry layoffs during the last year, industry analysts said.

...

Industrywide, drugs with combined annual sales estimated at $60 billion will lose patent protection in the next five years. That reality is frequently cited for layoffs at drug companies, including Pfizer, the world’s biggest drug maker, which has announced job cuts of about 10,000 in the past year, or about 10 percent of its work force. Johnson & Johnson said this year that it would cut 4,800 position, or about 4 percent of its employees.

Merck announced a global revamping in November 2005 that included an overall work force reduction of about 10 percent. There have already been 6,000 jobs cut, and the company is expected to lay off 1,000 more workers by the end of next year.

James Kumpel, an analyst for the investment house Friedman, Billings, Ramsey, said that part of the problem facing drug makers was an increasingly cautious F.D.A.

This year through October, the agency approved only 14 new molecular entities — drugs that are entirely new compounds rather than changes in formulations. That is a decline of about 18 percent from the comparable period in 2006, and it is well below recent norms, according to Mr. Kumpel’s analysis.

Mr. Kumpel said the trend appeared to reflect the lowest rate of F.D.A. approvals since 1994.

“If the F.D.A. is not allowing drugs to get to the market, or is just holding them to much tougher standards than before, drug makers face the prospect of a lot of new drugs going off patent and no new blockbusters to take their place,” Mr. Kumpel said
 
"i saw a list of the top county employers not too long ago. the largest employer in oc is disney, followed by (but not sure if the order is exactly correct): the county, uci, cke (carls jr corporate), boeing, ingram micro . healthcare providers kaiser, tenet, and st josephs are also amongst the the top ten if i recall correctly. "

Yeah...Disney, county govt, a state school, regional fast food HQ (CJ owned by Hardees based in the Southeast), defense contractor, a low margin distributor, and hmo/hospital. Big growth indsutries that provide tens of thosuands of 6 figure jobs.

Housing prices are directly related to the local economy. OC is in the midst of losing 15-20% of its jobs, and they were some of the highest paying ones. I think that due to the impact of the massive REIC job losses OC will come to resemble the IE in terms of depth of price decline. Based on the makeup of the OC economy, there aren't enough large high growth companies with high paying white collar jobs to compensate.
 
B2B -- Thanks for enlightening us. Sounds like you have a great case to stay up there in the Bay Area. Don't worry about us down here, and rest assured we are not worrying about you all up there.
 
Boston2theBay:

"Cisco alone has 18,000 people in San Jose. Is there any single employer in OC that provides that many high paying jobs?"

Therefore what? More intensified exposure? Have you stopped to think it is a position of strength to not be too invested in a specific company or industry? Denver has had its ups and downs because it is primarily focused in telecom. Look at Cleveland and Detroit following manufacturing busts. I think OC is diversified in its portfolio of companies and jobs enough to where it will weather this storm despite a severe correction in values (which is taking place internationally).

... OC will come to resemble the IE in terms of depth of price decline. Based on the makeup of the OC economy, there aren't enough large high growth companies with high paying white collar jobs to compensate.

Wrong. Many of the folks working these jobs in fact live in the IE. That is one of many reasons why the IE's correction is more severe thus far. Check city-data.com for the number of folks that commute OUT of, say, Corona, to get to work and the average commute. Then compare it to Irvine.
 
The reactions of tealeaf and CK to my reasoning proves the point the thread was intended to explore: where are the jobs in OC? I seem to recall Irvinesinglemom once bemoaning the lack of qualified applicants for positions at her company. OC is not a market that attracts skilled people. It is a great place to live, but not a great place to build a career if you're shooting for the moon, not to mention build a start-up. That's why I chose to accept promotions that required leaving OC many years ago.

I wish there was an intelligently written and commented blog for the Bay area. It would be fascinating. IR should consider branching out...

BTW, Cisco publicly announced they are investing $16Billion in their China presence, so I think they're plenty diversified. The point was to illustrate the huge pool of jobs of just one of the employers in the Bay area from the list at the top of the thread, multiply by the number of similarly sized companies in the Bay, and extrapolate the impact jobs and median incomes have on the rate of decline in median prices. I won't deny that I wish I could clone my job and career path and send it to Irvine. It's a great place to live. I chose to chase dollars instead of the OC lifestyle. Maybe I can come back as CxO of one of the tech firms there in 10 yrs.

This blog is the most fun I've had on the internet. The only blog that comes close is Roubini's.
 
Your reasoning, B2B? What are you looking for us to say? Oh, you are right -- I can be so rich in the Bay Area, I'll leave tomorrow!

I hate to break it to you, but to some people there is more to life than making money. I fell into that very trap when I moved my family up there 7 years ago -- got a big raise, but we missed family and friends. When I told them I was moving back to SoCal they offered me a *substantial* raise to stay -- and I turned them down because things like balancing career and family are important to me. Once you grow up you will realize that, and realize why we really don't care what jobs are up there. We have our reasons for being here, you have yours for being there. I like mine better. BTW -- I'm a Manager at a Big 4 Accounting firm. We employ 100,000 people+ globally. Which is also the number of digits my W2 will have on it. Steven Colbert is the keynote speaker at our Firm townhall meeting tomorrow morning. I'm not jealous of Cisco, Google, or anything else you have up there. Been there, done that -- and walked away. So I guess this unskilled Irvine hick was good enough for your elite world up there?
 
CK,

You must be dreading tax season. I had many friends who did Big 8 (way back then) acct and consulting - all bailed at some point. Talk about a grind of a job. How long until you're up for partner? You mention Google or Cisco yet you're an accounting mgr; what sort of role would you play at a company like that outside of finance? No one goes into high tech to be in the finance dept. Partners at your big 4 firm on the other hand are the ones who usually try to jump ship to a plum client firm for an easier life. As for work-life balance, I have plenty. In fact,it's almost over-emphasized at my firm judging by how many people seem to permanently work from home.

WINEX,

I have great respect for the defense industry. Many of the pioneers in Silicon Valley started doing defense-related research at SRI (Stanford Research Institute). Many many draft deferments came via doing defense-related post grad work. I know a few Patriot missile engineers that went on to great fame and fortune with startups in Boston and the Valley. My point was the breadth and number of jobs that sector provides to Orange County are not a large contributing factor, and those companies don't historically hand out loads of options and restricted stock to the rank and file.

The feedback here confirms my thesis: OC's job base is mid-market. This will be a large factor in the level to which prices decline. With a return to sane underwriting and down payments, I see Irvine SFR in older areas touching $200/sq ft, and high HOA/Mello Roos areas getting hit worse due to larger tax burden. Incomes can't support any higher which freezes the move-up buyer. Good news for those on the sidelines.
 
B2B, your statement about stock options is correct. The defense sector doesn't hand out equity like the tech sector. But having worked in the tech sector, I realize there is no such thing as a free lunch. I get paid more in the defense sector. And considering the pile of worthless stock options I have from working for a small startup at the beginning of the decade, I kind of like being able to invest my money how I want to invest it. It beats putting all my eggs in one basket any day of the week.

But you are wrong about the number of jobs and the breadth of positions. While defense contractors do have significant numbers of engineer and people with military backgrounds, they are businesses. We have managers, accountants, secretaries, people in manufacturing, security, and every other function that you would expect in any company.

It seems to me like your interpretation of feedback has confirmed your preformed opinion regardless of how many facts get in the way.
 
Funny... I grew up in the Bay Area. I'm a Software Engineer working in Irvine right now. There is obviously more jobs in my field in northern california in the form of the Ciscos and Intels and Googles that you listed but that doesn't mean there's aren't other high paying jobs down here. In the south bay, the majority of the high paying jobs are tied to the computer industry, and during the dot com bust it effected the economy there harder than in the OC since there isn't as much job diversification there. Don't get me wrong, being computer professional is a pretty stable way to pull in 100k+ salary a year but that doesn't mean its necessarily the only good high paying job.

If you look at the biggest companies in San Jose vs Irvine you'll see what I'm talking about. In San Jose the majority of the people living around there work for companies like eBay, Google, HP, Sun, Intel, Cisco, etc. These are all tech companies. In Irvine it is the headquarters for tech companies like Broadcom, to car companies (their North American headquarters) like Mazda and Kia, to fast food companies like In N Out and Taco Bell, to communications like Verizon, etc.
 
Wow! What got into everyone? It seems the housing crash has made everyone a bit testy. Myself included. But, lighten up people.

I have lived in the bay area, and I loved it. There are so many great things about the bay area, that you can't find, do, or see here. But, then there are great things you can find , do, or see here.

In all honesty, I would move back to the bay area in a heart beat. But, not the San Ho area. Why would I? It is the OC of the bay area. Really, it is not that much different. A bunch of tract homes and strip malls. Except, there when you go to the beach, you will be known as from "over the hill". Make sure you stay away from the eastside, because you will not be welcome.

Who cares who the major employers are? Seriously, what does it matter? To say we are mid-market is a serious mis-representation of the opportunities here. We have more small businesses here. A friend of mine made $80k last month, and he is one of 6 employees. Is that going to register as major employer? No... and I doubt you could make that at Cisco. I have another friend, who makes over $100k a week trading options. Is that going to register as a major employer? Again, No, and what does it matter? We have many major employers here, that may not register because the company is headquartered here. Ever here of crackberry? Google has their marketing team here. Why? Because, some of the best talent in marketing comes from LA, but they want to live here. Seriously, check out the marketing profs at USC. What about Flour, Blizzard, and Ceradyne?

I follow the job market here like a hawk. Yea, we have some issues, but if you have a talent, then you will find a great job or start a business. It is true, here the educated talent isn't in ab oversupply, like some areas, but there is talent here. I don't remember who it was, that said they didn't know anyone who got laid off during the tech bubble in NoCal, but this is BS. During that time it was F'ing awful. Extremely talented people were out of a job. Commercial RE went from $5-$8 a sqft., to under $2 a sqft. And, if you went out in the bay during that time, then you would remember everyone drinking pink drinks. You drank a pink drink, to show you got your pink slip.

Both areas have their benefits, and if those benefits mean more to you, then live there. By trashing one area doesn't add anything. I know which area, I would prefer to live, and no one here could change that.

Can we please... get back to talking about housing again?
 
Hmm, that can't be good for all the docs and dentists around Irvine...

Evidence Grows That Consumers Are Pulling Back

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119707327901017729.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news

The latest sign that growth in consumer spending, the mainstay of the U.S. economy, is slowing? A nip and tuck in spending on cosmetic surgery.

The slowdown was a hot topic at the meeting of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons in Baltimore this fall. One breast-implant maker sees hints of a slowdown in demand. The number of vision-correction surgeries appears to be falling as well. "This whole mortgage credit crisis is making people think twice," said J. Peter Rubin, a Pittsburgh plastic surgeon. "It's something I've noticed and some colleagues have noticed as well."

While anecdotal, the industry chatter ...
 
I think that the difference in the job market here is the greater reliance on entrepreneurship rather than corporate ladder-climbing. Everybody's perfect job is here. Just start your own small business doing what you are good at and enjoy doing. It is easier, cheaper, more socially acceptable, and more likely to succeed here than anywhere else I know. $50 for a city business licence in Irvine.
 
Gollini,

respectfully, you're comparing OC as an entrepreneur-based economy to SIlicon Valley? I thought the Valley defined the statup game and how it's played. What I think you're trying to say is "small-businessman" instead of entreprenur. Entrepreneur makes me think of someone with a business plan to get acquired by Cisco or Google. But you're correct - the OC economy is anchored by the smll business. Commercial bank lending officers categorize mid-market as companies with $10-$150M is sales/yr. Along with real estate, these are the backbone of the OC economy. Think small printing firms, machine tooling, billboards/signs, apparel companies etc.

My reason for starting this thread was to stimulate discussion on a more micro level around the OC job market, given the impact it will have on the rate of distressed inventory growth and thus price declines. The BLS stats don't lie: OC avg weekly paycheck lags metro centers with lots of large employers by 50%. Of course there are tons of poeple with great jobs here and many live in Irvine. But the point is OC lacks a base of high paying jobs that seem to be associated with large corporate employment bases. This will have the biggest effect on how fast and deep the price decline is there. But if you're educated with a great job outside of the REIC (espcially with a company that does lots of biz in emerging markets) chances are you'll be looking at great buying opportunities in OC over the next few years. The pool of qualified buyers will be very small relative to the inventory, a direct correlation to the characteristics of the local job market.
 
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