How Many Folks Have been Really Laid Off So Far in California? The Counties & Firms with the Largest Layoffs
Still not many layoffs but focused on the San Francisco Bay Area. Workers quickly found new jobs, and employment in California continued to rise.
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.
Amidst all of these breathless layoff announcements from tech and social media companies, I’ll keep an eye on actual layoffs in California as disclosed in the WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) reports. The big tech and social media companies are global companies and the layoff announcements are global and they’re just announcements and only some of them are happening in the US and they’re scattered across the US.
How many layoffs in California since July 1st?
In total, 54,679 layoffs across California have been announced in the WARN reports in the seven and a half months since July 1st, when this layoff tango began. This includes a variety of companies, from hospitals to Google, each for their own reasons.
But over the July 1-December period, employment rose by 229,000, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data (latest available), showing laid-off workers are generally being absorbed by other employers fairly quickly, and job growth continued .
Many employers, outbid for talent by tech and social media overstaffing and overpay frenzy, finally have a chance to hire staff on their terms.
The 15 counties with the most layoffs.
The table below shows the 15 counties with the most layoffs since July 1. However, here are some key points that complicate the picture:
The angel is the largest county in California with almost 10 million inhabitants. Over a quarter of California’s population lives in LA County. Many other counties are small. This is an important consideration since LA County had the most layoffs since July 1 (9,379), but was small given the size of the massive county.
But San Franciscowhich has less than 1/10 of the population (834,000), had 6,971 layoffs — even that’s a relatively small number given the size of San Francisco’s job market, but it was by far the largest layoff-per-population ratio in the state.
marine, a small-by-population county across the Golden Gate Bridge, has 578 layoffs from just one company, Autodesk, which is closing its Marin County headquarters and moving its headquarters to San Francisco. Most of its employees work hybrid from home. But it also reported 61 layoffs at its San Francisco office. The company announced in early February that it would lay off 250 of its global workforce. So it appears that Autodesk filed the WARN filing because it has permanently closed a facility, while most of the workers assigned to the Marin office will be assigned to the San Francisco office and will keep their jobs.
San Benitoa rural county south of Silicon Valley with a population of just 64,000 is at risk of losing its only hospital, Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital, which may file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy and reports 741 layoffs effective Feb. 18. Rural hospitals in the US are in trouble.
The top three counties with significant numbers of layoffs relative to their populations are San Francisco, Santa Clara (southern part of Silicon Valley), and San Mateo (northern part of Silicon Valley):
District: | redundancies | % of layoffs in CA | Pop. in 1,000 | Layoffs % of pop. | |
1 | The angel | 9,379 | 17.2% | 9,861 | 0.1% |
2 | Santa Clara | 7,069 | 12.9% | 1,936 | 0.4% |
3 | san francisco | 6,971 | 12.7% | 834 | 0.8% |
4 | San Diego | 5,533 | 10.1% | 3,298 | 0.2% |
5 | alameda | 4,705 | 8.6% | 1,682 | 0.3% |
6 | Saint Matthew | 4,330 | 7.9% | 764 | 0.6% |
7 | Orange | 3,594 | 6.6% | 3.186 | 0.1% |
8th | Sacramento | 1,553 | 2.8% | 1,585 | 0.1% |
9 | San Bernardino | 2,086 | 3.8% | 2.181 | 0.1% |
10 | River bank | 1,595 | 2.9% | 2,418 | 0.1% |
11 | core | 1,039 | 1.9% | 909 | 0.1% |
12 | San Benito | 789 | 1.4% | 64 | 1.2% |
13 | Against coast | 689 | 1.3% | 1.165 | 0.1% |
14 | marine | 682 | 1.2% | 262 | 0.3% |
15 | Ventura | 634 | 1.2% | 843 | 0.1% |
In total | 50,648 | 92.6% | 30,988 | 0.2% |
In the US, even in good times, 1.8 million layoffs and layoffs a month.
Companies lay off workers for a variety of reasons, including company-specific issues. And companies are laying off workers for all sorts of reasons. This is part of the regular churn. Nobody writes about it because it happens all the time. These workers are absorbed relatively quickly by other employers and unemployment remains low.
Across the US as a whole, between 1.6 million and 1.8 million workers were laid off or laid off each month during the good times before the pandemic. And they found jobs relatively quickly.
But in the bad times, suddenly there are 2.5 million layoffs and layoffs a month, month after month, just as employers have stopped hiring and the number of unemployed looking for jobs surges as companies shut the hatches .
But that’s exactly what we don’t see yet. The total number of layoffs and layoffs in the US rose to 1.48 million in December from record lows a year ago, but remains well below the lows of the pre-pandemic good times, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
Not released yet.
The WARN report also shows that some layoffs have an “effective date” in March or April and therefore those layoffs have not even happened yet, such as B. at Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Intel, Wayfair and many others, including Gallo Vertriebsgesellschaft (Winzer Gallo closed his in-house wine distribution and outsourced this business to another company).
Other dismissals in the WARN report have an effective date later in 2023 and some as far as 2024.
California’s WARN Act requires employers with 75 or more employees to give advance notice to employees affected by plant closures and layoffs. With sufficient severance pay, employers may fire employees with immediate effect, but must report such layoffs to WARN.
WARN reports do not reflect layoffs at small businesses with fewer than 75 employees.
The 61 companies with over 200 layoffs in California since July 1st.
Of the 54,679 layoffs reported by several hundred companies in the WARN reports since July 1, 55% or 30,863 layoffs were reported by just 61 companies, each reporting 200 or more layoffs during that time.
Among these 61 companies are a number of hospitals, other healthcare providers and insurers.
The 10 largest layoff companies accounted for 24% of all layoffs in California. But wait…
Temporary layoffs. No. 4 on that list, Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream, reported “temporary” layoffs of 1,213 employees in November as it closed parts of its facilities to shift production to new facilities. Those laid-off employees returned to work in December.
Jabil (No. 3) also indicated that some of the layoffs were temporary. There are several other minor “temporary” layoffs in the WARN report and list below (displayed). The WARN report does not specify when workers will return to work.
Pursue | redundancies | |
1 | Meta Platforms, Inc. | 2,726 |
2 | Smithfield distribution | 1,876 |
3 | Jabil | 1,661 |
4 | Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream (temporarily) | 1,213 |
5 | Foreclosure | 1,010 |
6 | 997 | |
7 | 953 | |
8th | Cepheids | 948 |
9 | Amazon | 890 |
10 | Community Hospital Madera | 772 |
11 | San Benito Health Care District dba Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital | 741 |
12 | intel | 721 |
13 | Cisco | 673 |
14 | Autodesk | 639 |
15 | cue health | 557 |
16 | snap inc | 485 |
17 | Sciolex Corporation | 461 |
18 | ABM Industry Groups, LLC dba-Meta | 434 |
19 | Blue Shield of California | 429 |
20 | American Airlines | 417 |
21 | first student | 406 |
22 | Lam Research | 400 |
23 | DHL supply chain | 394 |
24 | door line | 386 |
25 | PayPal | 378 |
26 | Infineon Technologies Americas Corp. | 375 |
27 | Crest Beverages, LLC | 372 |
28 | Brown & Toland Physician Services Org. | 364 |
29 | Elk Grove Auto Group | 355 |
30 | Gallo Sales Co. | 355 |
31 | Nutrition Corp, dba Fresh & Lean | 353 |
32 | Rivian | 351 |
33 | ThermoFisher Scientific | 335 |
34 | Amy’s kitchen | 331 |
35 | Löws Hotels & Co | 321 |
36 | destiny therapy | 315 |
37 | amgen | 307 |
38 | Teva Parental Medicines, Inc. | 305 |
39 | Tesla | 298 |
40 | Layer Technologies Inc. | 296 |
41 | TAP Manufacturing LLC and TAP Worldwide LLC dba 4 Wheel Parts | 293 |
42 | Zymergen Inc. | 293 |
43 | HCI, LLC | 281 |
44 | Wilhelm LLC | 274 |
45 | Nuro, Inc. | 269 |
46 | Bristol Myers Squibb | 261 |
47 | United Furniture Industries, Inc. | 261 |
48 | Argo AI, LLC | 257 |
49 | Western digital | 251 |
50 | Seanager, Inc. | 234 |
51 | Enlightenment | 232 |
52 | Lyft, Inc. | 227 |
53 | carbon health | 226 |
54 | Triple canopy | 226 |
55 | Owen Corning | 225 |
56 | Personnel service providers in the healthcare sector | 224 |
57 | Aseptic Solutions USA Ventures LLC | 211 |
58 | Athas Capital Group, Inc. | 211 |
59 | Terre du Soleil dba Auberge du Soleil | 206 |
60 | American Advisory Group | 204 |
61 | oracle | 201 |
62 | Labor Day, Inc. | 196 |
In total | 30,863 |
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