California lost a staggering 2.7 million jobs at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, losses brought on by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s stay-at-home order, which forced many businesses to close.

The state has added more than 3 million jobs since then, a remarkable streak that averaged just over 66,000 new jobs per month, according to the state Employment Development Department.

But a recent analysis of unemployment data by the federal government revealed that job growth slowed significantly last year. The federal government releases job numbers each month that state officials use to measure the health of the economy. Each year, the federal government analyzes these numbers to see if they match payroll records. Normally, the revisions are small and don’t impact the overall view of the economy.

But this year, while the data initially showed California added 300,000 jobs between September 2022 and September 2023, the corrected numbers released earlier this month show the state added just 50,000 jobs during that period.

“I think California’s economy is the leading edge of the national economic slowdown,” said Sung Won Sohn, a professor of finance and economics at Loyola Marymount University.

Estimating the number of jobs is tricky. The number is based on monthly surveys of workers. The recently corrected numbers show that the survey overestimated job growth in some sectors — with the biggest difference coming in the professional services category, which includes the often high-paying professions of lawyers, accountants and engineers, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office in California.

Last year, the preliminary numbers showed California added 9,900 jobs in July. But the corrected numbers show the state actually lost about 41,400 jobs that month.

Seven of California’s 11 job sectors lost jobs in February. The largest decrease was in construction, with 9,600 jobs lost — a reflection of disruptions from a series of strong storms that hit the state in February. The job losses would have been much worse had it not been for a strong showing among the health care sector, led mostly by increases in jobs such as acupuncturists and dieticians, according to the state Employment Development Department.

California’s economy soared during the pandemic, propped up by billions of dollars in federal aid and a runaway stock market that fueled rapid growth within the technology industry. Now, it appears the tech companies may have hired too many, too quickly.

“The tech sector, especially major firms, over-hired in the first post-pandemic year, and has been shedding jobs since,” said Michael Bernick, a former director of the California Employment Development Department who is now an attorney with the Duane Morris law firm. “The (San Francisco) Bay Area is the new epicenter of Artificial Intelligence start-ups. But these start-ups so far are creating a small number of jobs.”

The economic slowdown has made its way to the state’s budget, which for the second year in a row is facing a multibillion-dollar deficit. The Newsom administration and the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office disagree about the size of the deficit. The Newsom administration reported the deficit was $37.9 billion in January. But the LAO says it could be as high as $73 billion.

The governor and state Legislature usually finish the first version of the state’s spending plan in June. But this year, with the deficit so large, Newsom has been negotiating with legislative leaders on some early actions they could take next month to reduce the deficit ahead of the April tax filing deadline, which is when state officials get a better idea of how much money will be available to spend.

State Senate leader Mike McGuire, a Democrat, said he believes lawmakers need to reduce the deficit by at least $17 billion.

“The quicker we move, the better it is for California,” McGuire said. “We are going to have to make sacrifices. But early action means that we can bring this deficit to a more manageable level.”

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California lifted a stay-at-home order in the 13-county Sacramento region on Tuesday as hospital conditions improved, a rare turn of good news as the state pushes through what Gov. Gavin Newsom called “its most intense surge” of the coronavirus.

The order imposed Dec. 10 banned gatherings outside a household and shuttered or restricted many businesses. With virus cases and hospitalizations more stable now, the region can resume outdoor dining and worship services, reopen hair and nail salons and other businesses, and increase capacity at retailers Gatherings of up to three households are allowed.

Newsom made the announcement in a social media post that remined people to wear masks, stay home as much as possible and offered the hopeful promise: “There is a light at the end of this tunnel.”

Three of the state’s five regions — the San Francisco Bay Area, Central Valley and Southern California — remain under the stay-at-home order because their intensive care capacity at hospitals is severely limited.

California has seen an enormous surge of cases, hospitalizations and deaths since Thanksgiving. The state is averaging 42,000 new virus cases a day and recorded 3,500 virus deaths in the last week. On Monday the death toll topped 30,000 since the pandemic began.

Health officials are warning that hospitalizations and deaths are likely to continue to increase as people who contracted the virus during the holidays get sicker.

To try to get the virus in check California, is moving more quickly to distribute vaccines. Newsom set a goal last week of delivering 1 million doses by Friday. A state advisory board met Tuesday to discuss new federal guidelines that urge states to immediately start vaccinating a wider group of people.

Newsom imposed the nation’s first statewide stay-at-home order in March. It was lifted in the spring when cases fell but more restrictions were imposed during a summertime spike.

A huge surge in late fall prompted the Newsom administration to divide the state into five regions in December and impose a new stay-at-home order in four of them when their ICU capacity dropped below 15%. Only rural Northern California remained out of the order.

The Sacramento region’s ICU capacity now sits at 9.4% but it is projected to rise above 15% in the next four weeks, prompting the state to lift the order. The region includes El Dorado County, home to Lake Tahoe, a tourism hot spot that even with the restrictions saw large crowds during the holidays.

Newsom and Dr. Mark Ghaly, California’s secretary of health and human services, have credited the state-at-home order with limiting the severity of the outbreak but some experts question how much benefit was derived.

“What the stay-at-home orders were meant to do is keep families that don’t live together separated. Instead, over the last few months, you’ve had people getting together. You’ve had small social gatherings indoors,” said Dr. Brad Pollock, associate dean for public health sciences at the UC Davis School of Medicine. “I wouldn’t say the stay-at-home orders have been futile, but they probably haven’t had a huge impact on what’s actually happened with the transmission patterns.”

Supervisor Mike Ziegenmeyer of Sutter County in the Sacramento region acknowledged as much when he reacted to the order being lifted.

“It’s exciting, but at the same time, who adheres to it?” he said.

Shon Harris, a city councilman in Yuba City, said he was surprised Newsom lifted the order, calling it “baby steps back to the old normal.” But he encouraged people to “take COVID seriously, take the precautions seriously (and) abide by them.”

“They’ve given us an inch. We don’t want to take a mile and get greedy,” he said.

Meanwhile, the state continued its drive to administer nearly 1.5 million vaccine doses by Friday, still a small portion of what’s needed to achieve herd immunity in the state of nearly 40 million people. Several counties announced they would open mass vaccination sites, including at Dodger Stadium, Disneyland and Cal Expo, an outdoor venue in Sacramento.

But the effort to quickly ramp up vaccinations, including through new rules by the federal government, further led to confusion and varying approaches by county. California has been focused on vaccinating health care workers and nursing home residents first, with people over 75 and people at risk of getting the virus at work, like teachers or agriculture workers, in the next tier. UC Davis Medical Center on Tuesday began giving the vaccine to people over 75.

The federal government, meanwhile, said vaccinations should be available to anyone older than 65 and younger people with certain health conditions. Orange County said it would swiftly move to vaccinate people 65 and up.

But a meeting of the state’s Community Vaccine Advisory Committee grew tense as representatives of different groups debated the merits of expanding the vaccine pool beyond the state’s guidelines.

“Moving millions of people farther ahead in line by definition means millions of others are farther back in line,” said Mitch Steiger, legislative advocate for the California Labor Federation.

While he said the arguments make sense, he could not support a change that would bump back essential workers, recognizing that for many of his members it means “more of you are going to get sick, more of you are going to die.”

Dr. Michael Wasserman, president of the California Association for Long Term Care Medicine, worried that the state may be moving on to the next tier without first making sure workers and residents of nursing homes, assisted living and group homes are protected first, while others expressed similar fears that the rush to vaccinate the aging could leave behind other workers who had been next in line or those in disadvantaged communities who are harder to reach.

“Sure you’re hitting the gas peddle, but don’t leave us behind,” summarized Charles Bacchi with the California Association of Health Plans, even as he supported concentrating on vaccination the older population. “We just can’t lose sight of that.”

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Regional Stay at Home Order would go into effect after 48 hours in regions with less than 15 percent ICU availability

Regional Stay at Home Orders will prohibit travel except as necessary for permitted activities, close operations for certain sectors and require 100 percent masking and physical distancing in all others

Schools currently open can remain open and retailers can operate indoors at no more than 20 percent capacity to reduce exposure risk

New order is a modification of the state’s initial Stay at Home Order signed in March and builds on the Blueprint for a Safer Economy

SACRAMENTO – As COVID-19 case rates and hospitalizations continue to rise at an alarming pace and threaten to overwhelm the health care delivery system, California health officials today announced a Regional Stay at Home Order that will be triggered if Intensive Care Unit (ICU) capacity drops below 15 percent in a given region. State health officials are tracking the state by five regions: Northern California, Bay Area, Greater Sacramento, San Joaquin Valley and Southern California. No regions currently meet this threshold but some are projected to as early as this week. When the Order is triggered in a region, it will have 48 hours to adopt the new order. Residents are required to stay at home as much as possible and minimize mixing to reduce unnecessary exposure, while still being able to do important things like go to the doctor, buy groceries, pick up take out, go on a hike, or worship outdoors. K-12 schools that are already open can remain open and retailers can operate indoors at no more than 20 percent capacity to reduce exposure risk.   

The five regions are:    
·       Northern California: Del Norte, Glenn, Humboldt, Lake, Lassen, Mendocino, Modoc, Shasta, Siskiyou, Tehama, Trinity  ·       Bay Area: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Monterey, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano, Sonoma 
·       Greater Sacramento: Alpine, Amador, Butte, Colusa, El Dorado, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Sacramento, Sierra, Sutter, Yolo, Yuba 
·       San Joaquin Valley: Calaveras, Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Merced, San Benito, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Tulare, Tuolumne 
·       Southern California: Imperial, Inyo, Los Angeles, Mono, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura   

Regions will remain in the Regional Stay at Home Order status for at least three weeks once triggered. Counties are eligible to come off the Regional Stay at Home Order after three weeks if their hospital ICU capacity projected four weeks out reaches 15 percent. Counties will return to the Blueprint for a Safer Economy tier determined by their case rate and test positivity after they are eligible to exit the Regional Stay at Home Order.    

“We are at a tipping point in our fight against the virus and we need to take decisive action now to prevent California’s hospital system from being overwhelmed in the coming weeks,” said Governor Newsom. “By invoking a Stay at Home Order for regions where ICU capacity falls below 15 percent, we can flatten the curve as we’ve done before and reduce stress on our health care system. I’m clear-eyed that this is hard on all of us — especially our small businesses who are struggling to get by. That’s why we leaned in to help our small business owners with new grants and tax relief to help us get through this month. If we stay home as much as possible, and wear masks when we have to go to the doctor, shop for groceries or go for a hike, California can come out of this in a way that saves lives and puts us on a path toward economic recovery.”    “We know what a struggle this pandemic has been for so many California families, but our actions have saved countless lives,” said Dr. Mark Ghaly, California Health and Human Services Secretary. “This targeted action will preserve vital ICU beds for people who need them — whether they’re COVID-19 patients or someone who has suffered a heart attack or a stroke.”   

“Staying home for three weeks is a sacrifice, but if every Californian did that for a month, we could stop this disease in its tracks,” said Dr. Erica Pan, Acting State Public Health Officer. “This public health order strikes the balance between saving lives, providing essential services that we all rely on and still allowing Californians to participate in lower-risk outdoor activities that are crucial for our physical and mental health.”   

The terms of the Regional Stay at Home Order closely mirror the March order, with some variations.    

What does the Regional Stay at Home Order do?    

The Regional Stay at Home Order would be in effect for 3 weeks after the trigger and instructs Californians to stay at home as much as possible to limit the mixing with other households that can lead to COVID-19 spread. It allows access to (including travel for) critical services and allows outdoor activities to preserve Californians’ physical and mental health. This limited closure will help stop the surge and prevent overwhelming regional ICU capacity.    

In any region that triggers a Regional Stay at Home Order because it drops below 15 percent ICU capacity, all operations in the following sectors must be closed:    

·       Indoor and Outdoor Playgrounds
·       Indoor Recreational Facilities 
·       Hair Salons and Barbershops 
·       Personal Care Services 
·       Museums, Zoos, and Aquariums 
·       Movie Theaters 
·       Wineries 
·       Bars, Breweries, and Distilleries 
·       Family Entertainment Centers 
·       Cardrooms and Satellite Wagering 
·       Casinos 
·       Limited Services 
·       Live Audience Sports 
·       Amusement Parks   

The following sectors will have additional modifications in addition to 100 percent masking and physical distancing:    ·       Outdoor Recreational Facilities: Allow outdoor operation only without any food, drink or alcohol sales. Additionally, overnight stays at campgrounds will not be permitted. 
·       Retail: Allow indoor operation at 20 percent capacity with entrance metering and no eating or drinking in the stores. Additionally, special hours should be instituted for seniors and others with chronic conditions or compromised immune systems.  ·       Shopping Centers: Allow indoor operation at 20 percent capacity with entrance metering and no eating or drinking in the stores. Additionally, special hours should be instituted for seniors and others with chronic conditions or compromised immune systems. 
·       Hotels and Lodging: Allow to open for critical infrastructure support only. 
·       Restaurants: Allow only for take-out or pick-up. 
·       Offices: Allow remote only except for critical infrastructure sectors where remote working is not possible. 
·       Places of Worship: Allow outdoor services only. 
·       Entertainment Production including Professional Sports: Allow operation without live audiences. Additionally, testing protocol and “bubbles” are highly encouraged.   

The following sectors are allowed to remain open when a remote option is not possible with appropriate infectious disease preventative measures including 100 percent masking and physical distancing:   
·       Critical Infrastructure 
·       Schools that are already open for in-person learning 
·       Non-urgent medical and dental care 
·       Child care and pre-K   

When does a Regional Stay at Home Order end?    

The Regional Stay at Home Order will be implemented regionally once there is less than 15 percent ICU capacity remaining in the designated region. After three weeks from the start of the Stay-at-Home Order, the following criteria would apply:   

1.      End for a county in a region if the region’s ICU capacity projected out four weeks (from three weeks since the Stay-at-Home Order started) is above or equal to 15 percent. Each county in the region would be assigned to a tier based on the Blueprint for a Safer Economy. 

2.      Remain in effect in a county if the region’s ICU capacity projected out four weeks (from three weeks since the Stay-at-Home Order started) is less than 15 percent. The order would remain in effect until the region’s ICU capacity meets criteria (1) above. This would be assessed on a weekly basis.   

Can we people go outside?    Members of the same household are encouraged to maintain physical and mental health by safely going to a park, a beach, hike, walk or bike ride when safe to do so and socially distanced. Californians are also encouraged to keep connected with loved ones virtually.

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