California's Competitiveness

California’s Competitiveness: Californians Lose More Than 375,000 Private-Sector Jobs in Six-Year Span

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Private-sector employers with 50 or more workers in California have eliminated 375,703 jobs since July 2014, according to data updated February 10 by the California Employment Development Department (EDD).

During the first seven and a half months of the 2019-20 fiscal year, more than 52,000 workers received layoff notices, according to the EDD data.

State law requires employers of 50 or more workers to provide workers and government officials with a 60-day notice when they are going to lay off workers or close a plant. The 2002 law is known as the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, or WARN Act.

The EDD’s detailed list of WARN notices indicates that from August 1, 2019, through February 10, employers issued 627 notices involving a total of 52,365 jobs. Almost exactly half of the notices (315) involved permanent closure of operations in California. The table below shows how these numbers for the partial fiscal year compare to numbers from recent full fiscal years (July 1 through June 30).