Counsel with the international law firm of Duane Morris LLP, a Milken Institute Fellow and former Director of the California Employment Development Department
The California economy is often described today as stagnant. The latest state unemployment numbers covering August 2010 showed unemployment changed only slightly to 12.4% and minimal movement in net payroll jobs-a loss of 33,500 payroll jobs over the month out of 13,827,900 payroll jobs overall in California.
Of course, below the surface of these numbers , there is enormous movement of jobs and workers. I have posted several times of the enormous job creation and destruction going on each month in California (roughly 220,000-250,000 jobs continue to be created each month and an equal number destroyed, even during the Recession). Data recently released in the federal Department of Labor’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover (JOLTS) report indicate the Brownian motion of workers among existing jobs. Even in the Recession, workers are moving in and out of jobs at a rapid pace. Some of this movement reflects voluntary separations ("quits") , a greater amount of the movement is due to involuntary separations ( "layoffs/discharges")
The chart below, taken from this JOLTS report, indicates nationwide the number of Separations-quits and layoffs/discharges-both before and during the current Recession, through July of this year.