What jobs are in OC?

[momopi_IHB]

There's always Maruchan ramen, I doubt they'd go out of business. They have a big warehouse here in Irvine and, if you can't get a job with them, you can still buy their products and feed yourself cheap.

Hmm... wonder if I can make mee goreng with their noodles?

 

[OakCreekRenter_IHB]

I'm confused about the income statistics...

The BLS has the following income statistics regarding Orange County:

Mean annual: $44,200

Median Hourly: $16.15

Mean Hourly: $21.26

http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_42044.htm

The BLS has the following income statistics regarding SF/OAKLAND/FREMONT:

Mean annual: $52,230

Median Hourly: $20.16

Mean Hourly: $25.11

http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_41860.htm

And for good measure, the BLS statistics regarding Los Angeles County:

Mean annual: $43,160

Median Hourly: $15.72

Mean Hourly: $20.75

http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_31084.htm

Comparing the annual salaries, SF has a 15% increase in mean annual, and a between OC and Bay area salaries, and a 20% increase in median hourly. Where is the 50% number coming from?

Conversely, the median house prices via Dataquick in the counties are as follows:

Orange County: $585K

San Fransisco: $787K

Contra Costa: $531K

Alameda: $580K

Santa Clara: $695K

San Mateo: $791K

http://www.dqnews.com/ZIPCAR.shtm

In other words, it seems to be the case that Orange County's home prices are lower than the Bay Area, corresponding with the lower salaries. It's not like Orange County has the same real estate pricing and 50% lower income. The situation seems to be more like 15% lower salaries with 15% lower median home prices. Which makes sense.

Or am I missing something?

-OCR

 

[OC_Boston_Bay_IHB]

OCR,

look at this link:http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cewqtr.t01.htm

It is the avg weekly paycheck for the 392 largest counties in the U.S. Here are the numbers for CA:

Alameda, CA.............. 1,139

Contra Costa, CA......... 1,116

Los Angeles, CA.......... 974

Orange, CA............... 1,001

San Francisco, CA........ 1,639

San Mateo, CA............ 1,447

Santa Clara, CA.......... 1,584

Even Alameda and Contra Costa county, the "cheap" parts of the Bay area, have higher income (even with places like Oakland, Hayward, Dublin etc. dragging down the averages), and SF and SIlicon Valley are 50% higher than OC.

Check out NY - $2821/week. Fairfield CT (hedge fund HQ) is $1979. Suffolk MA (Boston) is $1659. Big centers of high wage jobs show large % differences from OC.

 

[OakCreekRenter_IHB]

Fair enough (CEW and OES data differ in methodology), but the question was "Why does the Bay area (San Jose up to Marin) have 2x the average weekly income, per 2006 BLS stats?". I may be splitting hairs here, but I don't see anywhere where that's true...

It may also help to look at medians versus means, especially if there are a few highly concentrated areas of super-high incomes. I won't go into the mechanics of why, but in areas of high income inequality, medians are less misleading. A few VERY well paid hedge fund managers driving up the average wage is a great example of why median may be a better indicator of whether incomes in a given area can sustain housing.

I'm also not sure that the assertion that working for large corporations is positively correlated with larger incomes is true. My own experience tends to run opposite. Smaller businesses = higher risk, which in turn equals potentially higher rewards.

Just my $0.02, and I can tell we've run this topic in to the ground...

-OCR

 

[reason_IHB]

How about this one? It's not how much you make. But rather how you manage it.

 

[OC_Boston_Bay_IHB]

Not 2x, you're right. 50% per the stats I posted. Still, 50% is a big gap. Not sure why, but the major metro areas with large concentrations of corporate jobs show higher avg wages. This is borne out in the stats. Also, look at the FORTUNE article I posted which lends credence to this. The #1 city for savings is Los Alamos, with the credit given by the authors to the large pool of high paying jobs at the Nuclear Lab. #2? San Jose, attributed to the large pools of jobs at the tech companies. So it's not necessarily large corproations, but alrge pool sof high paying jobs. OC had that with the REIC, but with that train gone from the station, what else will fill the void? Also, does anyone think the BLS stats for 2008 will reflect a decline in OC avg weekly earnings?

This thread has definitely run its course. I just felt that the jobs issue had never been deeply explored on this board.

Thanks to all who contributed.

 

[graphrix_IHB]

I posted about the RE jobs back in May. I thought it was pretty detailed.

I will have more comments later. This thread still has some life left.

 

[PeterUK_IHB]

"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.

This was posted a year ago, do you think we could bump it up to 25-30% now? More?

Anyone?

 

[irvine_home_owner_IHB]

I think it rains too much in the Bay Area.

And it smells like fish.

That is all.

 

[OC_Boston_Bay_IHB]

"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.

This was posted a year ago, do you think we could bump it up to 25-30% now? More?

Anyone?

What a year. The worst part has been hearing many IHB contributors with job uncertainty/losses. Personally, job uncertainty (which I have been fortunate to avoid since 2002) is one notch below family medical crisis in terms of stress quotient. In 2002 I saw my OC-based position in jeopardy, and took an internal relo to Boston over moving to an OC-based firm because I wanted to stay with my company. Living in the NE kind of sucked due to the long winter, but it was very enlightening to be in a major corporate job market after having grown up in L.A. I then realized that I desperately wanted to get back to CA, but that my only location could be San Jose.

Boston and San Jose have three things in common compared to SoCal: much smaller populations, and a huge concentration of major corporate HQs combined with major universities. Silicon Valley is ~2M people (excluding SF), Boston is even less. SoCal is like 15 million people. If CalTech/USC/UCLA could ever form an alliance to leverage their proximity to each other they could foster something big.

I read some scary qotes today by the CEO of Hon Hai (Foxconn) that lead me to believe the computer industry is about to get hammered worse than anyone is predicting. This will obviosuly be devastating to SV. What about to OC? What will be the major sectors of 6-figure employment in OC in 2012? Will services return or will new R&D/mfg materialize?

 

[25w100k+_IHB]

Seems to me tech is doing OK in OC. Obviously, SV has a lot more tech jobs, but on the other hand, a bigger percentage of those jobs are VC funded startups. OC has a lot less VC activity (which is a bad thing overall), but when the economy takes a hit, most of the tech companies arn't as affected by it.

I know Google and Blizzard are still actively hiring, along with the company I'm at. Broadcom hired one of my friends a month ago in a non-tech job. I have a feeling OC will ride out the storm with the exception of the Mortgage companies.

 

[PeterUK_IHB]

"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.

This was posted a year ago, do you think we could bump it up to 25-30% now? More?

Anyone?

What a year. The worst part has been hearing many IHB contributors with job uncertainty/losses. Personally, job uncertainty (which I have been fortunate to avoid since 2002) is one notch below family medical crisis in terms of stress quotient. In 2002 I saw my OC-based position in jeopardy, and took an internal relo to Boston over moving to an OC-based firm because I wanted to stay with my company. Living in the NE kind of sucked due to the long winter, but it was very enlightening to be in a major corporate job market after having grown up in L.A. I then realized that I desperately wanted to get back to CA, but that my only location could be San Jose.

Boston and San Jose have three things in common compared to SoCal: much smaller populations, and a huge concentration of major corporate HQs combined with major universities. Silicon Valley is ~2M people (excluding SF), Boston is even less. SoCal is like 15 million people. If CalTech/USC/UCLA could ever form an alliance to leverage their proximity to each other they could foster something big.

I read some scary qotes today by the CEO of Hon Hai (Foxconn) that lead me to believe the computer industry is about to get hammered worse than anyone is predicting. This will obviosuly be devastating to SV. What about to OC? What will be the major sectors of 6-figure employment in OC in 2012? Will services return or will new R&D/mfg materialize?

Well, to give you a real life experience, my wife is in the Healthcare Industry and was laid off, nobody is hiring, I'm in Manufacturing within one of the strongest/largest Corporations in the US and we have had layoffs and there is a hiring freeze.

Seeing that this is the IHB and I work in the Irvine Indstrial area, I can tell you that if things continue the way they are it will be a Ghost Town by the end of 2009, I have no data to back that up, I just see more and more "To Let" signs sitting outside what were once busy manufacturing and service Business every Day.

However, Churches are springing up everywhere, they are utilizing ex-manufacturing Facilities....

So to answer your question "Will services return or will new R&D/mfg materialize"?

I would say no, deffinately not in Irvine.

 

[JLegend_IHB]

^^Sky is falling!!

I know the economy is bad overall, and OC is feeling it pretty hard. Fortunately I still have my job, but life continues in Irvine/OC. It's only when I come to this forum that I get the sense of a nuclear bomb aftermath. Economy will suck for a couple of years, but when it comes back, things will be fine (although not as good as the previous 2 years). Time to dollar-cost average people.

 

[graphrix_IHB]

Seems to me tech is doing OK in OC. Obviously, SV has a lot more tech jobs, but on the other hand, a bigger percentage of those jobs are VC funded startups. OC has a lot less VC activity (which is a bad thing overall), but when the economy takes a hit, most of the tech companies arn't as affected by it.

Tech is doing OK? Do you mean that tech is not seeing as bad of job losses as financial or RE jobs? Because the tech related job sectors are down 3.3% YOY. Also, OC has some of the most VC money when it comes to the percentage of tech companies/jobs in OC. IRCC only SV has more VC money than OC. I'd search the OCR for the articles they did on how much money was being sloshed around OC, but to be honest, I don't feel like it.

I know Google and Blizzard are still actively hiring, along with the company I'm at. Broadcom hired one of my friends a month ago in a non-tech job. I have a feeling OC will ride out the storm with the exception of the Mortgage companies.

I'm not trying to push buttons, but what do you mean by riding out the storm? Is that aside from the financial and RE jobs OC will have job growth, or the job losses will not be as bad? I'm glad your company is hiring, and so are the others you cite, but for every one tech person, like yourself, I hear two tech people who say the opposite. I mean, every sector is the red except for health care. Judging by what Petah says, health care isn't that healthy either. In fact, the tech related sectors are below 2004 job levels.

So... am I missing something in your post, or misinterpreting something? Because, what I read from your post is not being seen in the numbers. Have you been hanging out with Panda again?

Even Google is cutting back.

 

[PeterUK_IHB]

^^Sky is falling!!

I know the economy is bad overall, and OC is feeling it pretty hard. Fortunately I still have my job, but life continues in Irvine/OC. It's only when I come to this forum that I get the sense of a nuclear bomb aftermath. Economy will suck for a couple of years, but when it comes back, things will be fine (although not as good as the previous 2 years). Time to dollar-cost average people.

I wish I didn't have such a pessimistic view, I'm not a pessimistic Guy - btw, thanks for the Data Graph- I spend 60 hours a week working in manufacturing in Irvine I speak to local Suppliers & Vendors every Day and I've got to know them very well, they all tell me the same thing, Business is horrible!!

 

[norcaljeff_IHB]

while I do agree that availability of financing inflates the house price, but how does one "pretend" to be rich if they drive a 70K + car and buy over 1 mil homes?

Wow, one could say you aren't very informed. There are hundreds of posts here and elsewhere showing the million dollar lifestyle was a farce in many cases. Just because a bank was stupid enough to lend money at 10-1 leverage, and higher, doesn't make it ok and might pose a problem to the economy at some point. I seem to recall reading something about a real estate problem in the US recently.

 

[norcaljeff_IHB]

Boston, great post but you lost me at that "bay area is different" mentality. FYI...Google traded their 10-20% annual bonuses to employees for G phones. Kinda hard to make your mortgage payment with a G phone.

 

[norcaljeff_IHB]

From the OC Reg:

A UCLA economist did an analysis of the current “structural transition” in Orange County’s economy and concluded that “it will be around 2012 or 2013 before Orange County has fully regained the employment it lost in the home mortgage implosion.”

In the latest UCLA Anderson Forecast for California, economist Jerry Nickelsburg writes that the state’s economy is expected to produce weak — but positive — employment growth this year. Orange County, however, is “a different story”:

“It was the center of what was a boom and is now a shrinking industry: home mortgage finance. The industry was structured to handle the high volume of transactions experienced in 2004-2006 and must now adjust to the new and more sustainable level of activity.”

In the 12 months through April, Orange County employers shed 19,700 payroll jobs, with 16,800 of those job losses coming in the financial sector, according to the state’s Employment Development Department. Many of those jobs, particularly in the subprime sector, won’t be coming back. However, growth in other sectors should eventually allow Orange County’s job market to surpass its previous size. The question is, how long will it take?

- I'm wiling to be that job loss number has tripled since this was published back in April and I'm sure 2009 won't be rosey for jobs in OC either, especially how tied the area is to RE.

 

[norcaljeff_IHB]

More good stuff from the OC Reg rag:

A UCLA economist did an analysis of the current “structural transition” in Orange County’s economy and concluded that “it will be around 2012 or 2013 before Orange County has fully regained the employment it lost in the home mortgage implosion.”

In the latest UCLA Anderson Forecast for California, economist Jerry Nickelsburg writes that the state’s economy is expected to produce weak — but positive — employment growth this year. Orange County, however, is “a different story”:

“It was the center of what was a boom and is now a shrinking industry: home mortgage finance. The industry was structured to handle the high volume of transactions experienced in 2004-2006 and must now adjust to the new and more sustainable level of activity.”

In the 12 months through April, Orange County employers shed 19,700 payroll jobs, with 16,800 of those job losses coming in the financial sector, according to the state’s Employment Development Department. Many of those jobs, particularly in the subprime sector, won’t be coming back. However, growth in other sectors should eventually allow Orange County’s job market to surpass its previous size. The question is, how long will it take?

 

[awgee_IHB]

"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.

This was posted a year ago, do you think we could bump it up to 25-30% now? More?

Anyone?

What a year. The worst part has been hearing many IHB contributors with job uncertainty/losses. Personally, job uncertainty (which I have been fortunate to avoid since 2002) is one notch below family medical crisis in terms of stress quotient. In 2002 I saw my OC-based position in jeopardy, and took an internal relo to Boston over moving to an OC-based firm because I wanted to stay with my company. Living in the NE kind of sucked due to the long winter, but it was very enlightening to be in a major corporate job market after having grown up in L.A. I then realized that I desperately wanted to get back to CA, but that my only location could be San Jose.

Boston and San Jose have three things in common compared to SoCal: much smaller populations, and a huge concentration of major corporate HQs combined with major universities. Silicon Valley is ~2M people (excluding SF), Boston is even less. SoCal is like 15 million people. If CalTech/USC/UCLA could ever form an alliance to leverage their proximity to each other they could foster something big.

I read some scary qotes today by the CEO of Hon Hai (Foxconn) that lead me to believe the computer industry is about to get hammered worse than anyone is predicting. This will obviosuly be devastating to SV. What about to OC? What will be the major sectors of 6-figure employment in OC in 2012? Will services return or will new R&D/mfg materialize?

Well, to give you a real life experience, my wife is in the Healthcare Industry and was laid off, nobody is hiring, I'm in Manufacturing within one of the strongest/largest Corporations in the US and we have had layoffs and there is a hiring freeze.

Seeing that this is the IHB and I work in the Irvine Indstrial area, I can tell you that if things continue the way they are it will be a Ghost Town by the end of 2009, I have no data to back that up, I just see more and more "To Let" signs sitting outside what were once busy manufacturing and service Business every Day.

However, Churches are springing up everywhere, they are utilizing ex-manufacturing Facilities....

So to answer your question "Will services return or will new R&D/mfg materialize"?

I would say no, deffinately not in Irvine.

I tax plan and prepare returns for a few churches and ministers. All churches are cutting back right now. I have heard that a few are about to go under, and many are in trouble.