Every week, ‘Good News of the Week’ features a curation of positive headlines from San Diego, delivered straight to your inbox. A blend of aggregated stories from San Diego’s most trusted news sources and original EDC-created content, GNOTW provides a comprehensive recap of the region’s best stories from the past week. GNOTW is sponsored by Manpower San Diego.
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For the week of April 19, 2024, here’s what we’re reading:
EDC invites you to join us at our Annual Dinner together with more than 900 business and community leaders. We’ll enjoy a brief program honoring our Life. Changing. awardees followed by dinner and networking at the new Gallagher Square at Petco Park.
EDC, Apprenti partner to grow local talent pipeline
This is a developing story; last update was made July 2024.
With a nationwide talent shortage, companies are challenged to maximize growth. In San Diego, this issue is exacerbated by a declining working-age population coupled with job growth, making it difficult to find qualified talent. To build a strong workforce in this climate, companies must explore alternative talent acquisition pathways.
Join San Diego Regional EDC and Apprenti to explore how registered apprenticeships can help employers create a pipeline of critical, diverse, emerging talent, and support our local workforce. Together with Apprenti, EDC invites companies with advanced manufacturing or information technologyoperations to hire registered apprentices. Apprentices will tentatively begin in Summer 2024, with training completed and full-time onboarding in Winter 2026.
THE PARTNERS
EDC recognizes talent as the cornerstone of economic growth and works to leverage employer engagement, work-based learning, and unique company solutions to broaden San Diego’s pool of diverse, qualified talent. In complement, Seattle-based non-profit Apprenti provides the resources to support employers in developing a strong apprenticeship pipeline. Through this partnership catalyzed during EDC’s Leadership Trip, the Apprenti program sources, assesses, trains, and places talent for participating companies. The program also manages the administrative process of registering through state and federal systems, including access to braided funding to support program investments.
WHO SHOULD PARTICIPATE?
Companies that require a workforce with advanced manufacturing or information technology related technical skills but not a traditional degree. Roles include:
Advanced manufacturing
Optics manufacturing technician
Electromechanical technician
Precision machinist
Automation and controls technician
Instrumentation and controls technician
CNC operator and programmer
Information technology
Software developer/analyst
Cybersecurity analyst
CRM/CMS developer
IT support professional
IT business analyst
Systems administrator
Cloud operations specialist
Technical sales specialist
DevOps specialist
Web developer
UX designer
CRM administrator
Data analyst
WHY PARTICIPATE?
SAMPLE TIMELINE
Summer 2024: Apprentices begin training in the classroom half-time, and working on the job half-time.
Winter 2026: Apprentices complete classroom training, apprenticeship ends, and employers bring individuals on full-time.
Fee covers services by Apprenti and EDC in sourcing talent, tests screening candidates, completing state and federal administrative requirements, providing ongoing apprenticeship programmatic support, and coordinating with training partners around funding and qualified curriculum. It does not include the cost of related technical instruction (which could be as low as $0) nor wages for the apprentice, which must be at least 60 percent of the employer first year wage paid to employees in this role at your company.
Every week, ‘Good News of the Week’ features a curation of positive headlines from San Diego, delivered straight to your inbox. A blend of aggregated stories from San Diego’s most trusted news sources and original EDC-created content, GNOTW provides a comprehensive recap of the region’s best stories from the past week. GNOTW is sponsored by Manpower San Diego.
Get Good News of the Week in your inbox every Friday.→ Sign up
For the week of April 12, 2024, here’s what we’re reading:
EDC invites you to our Annual Dinner, gathering more than 900 business and community leaders to celebrate our region and organization. On June 18, we’ll enjoy a brief program honoring our Life. Changing. awardees followed by dinner and networking at the new Gallagher Square at Petco Park.
Each quarter, EDC’s Research Bureau releases its Economic Snapshot to analyze key economic indicators in San Diego’s economy. Read on as we dig deeper to assess the region’s job recovery journey in a post-pandemic economy by looking at economic trends through the end of 2023.
San Diego’s job recovery journey
As San Diego’s unemployment rate has remained up and above the national average, at 4.3 percent and 3.5 percent respectively, and as job growth has slowed compared to early 2023, it is worth examining the region’s progress recovery in a post-pandemic economy.
From March to April 2020, San Diego lost 233,900 jobs, and employment dropped by 18.5 percent causing the unemployment rate to spike to 15.7 percent. In November 2021, the region officially recovered the total number of jobs lost during the pandemic. While recovering lost jobs is an indicator of a healthy economy, it does not tell the whole story. The following explores San Diego’s employment data to understand where the region stands as of the end of 2023.
Not all industries are created equal
While San Diego has regained the total amount of lost jobs, this is not the case for each industry. Total employment in San Diego stands two percent higher than at the onset of the pandemic. However, more than half of industries in San Diego don’t currently match pre-pandemic employment levels. Top growing industries such as Utilities, Transportation, and Healthcare help offset other sectors that are lagging in job growth.
Comparing current employment levels relative to pre-pandemic numbers is not always a reflection of recovery. Such is the case for Finance and Insurance, which made up for pandemic-related job losses by December 2020, but currently sits at 5,300 jobs under original pre-pandemic levels. In fact, several other industries initially recovered pandemic job losses and now find themselves with lower total employment. This includes Retail Trade, Real Estate, Accommodation and Food Services, and Management of Companies.
While it is hard to assume this negative trend is related to pandemic effects, the new conditions it spurred can potentially have a lagging impact on employment across sectors. For example, as remote work trends have become more prevalent, commercial real estate is affected as firms continue to reduce their office footprint, which could potentially lead to a lower demand for commercial real estate talent. In 2019, remote job postings made up only eight and four percent of total job postings in Finance and Information, respectively. In 2023, those proportions grew to 26 and 15 percent.
The industries that recovered the fastest are Transportation and Warehousing in November 2020, followed by Finance and Insurance in December 2020, and Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services in March 2021. Employment in the Utilities industry was hardly impacted after March 2020, which might explain why it has added the most jobs since the pandemic started.
What if the pandemic didn’t impact jobs?
While jobs have been recovered, the pandemic has also impacted the job growth that would have occurred absent the pandemic. Before the COVID hit, San Diego’s annual employment growth rate was averaging at 1.1 percent. This typical annual growth rate was disrupted in 2020, as annual employment fell by 10 percent.
To get an idea of where employment would stand today if jobs had not declined amid the pandemic, we apply the average growth rate from 2019 to 2023. Below, we can see how this potential growth compares to the actual annual employment levels in San Diego. From this, we see that the region is still 1,488 jobs below the potential growth, assuming employment has been growing at a fixed annual rate of 1.1 percent. This recovery had a significant economic impact on the region beyond number of jobs. In 2020, the annual growth of San Diego’s gross regional product (GRP) was barely 0.1 percent, while the annual GRP growth rate in 2021 and 2022 was 10 percent.
San Diego relative to California
While San Diego has not fully closed this gap between actual employment and potential employment growth, it is ahead of the state. This aligns with the fact that San Diego’s unemployment rate has remained below California’s throughout the pandemic until now. Additionally, the region was able to reach pre-pandemic labor force levels back in 2022, while the state remains 1.57 percentage points below 2019 participation.
Where does San Diego stand?
While San Diego’s recovery from pandemic employment impacts is not over yet, it is very close to completion at a macro level. However, it is important to monitor individual industries as their employment trends differ from one another. Even after San Diego is aligned with its potential growth, there will likely be industries falling behind; some might even experience new disruptions due to emerging economic conditions in a post-pandemic economic climate.
When comparing to California, the region has held a stronger position and experienced an overall faster recovery, with lower unemployment rates, faster labor force growth, and more rapid return to potential growth.
I hope this message finds you all well and enjoying springtime in San Diego. As we speed through April, our entire team is turning its attention to our upcoming Annual Dinner.
As many of you know, for more than 20 years, San Diego Regional EDC has presented an award at our Annual Dinner that focuses on community and economic service and leadership. Originally called “The Spirit of San Diego Award,” this recognition was later changed in 2010 to honor the memory of Herb Klein—a truly wonderful San Diego leader who was noted for bringing people together to work on many of San Diego’s most challenging political and economic issues. More than anything, both iterations of this award were structured to recognize an individual who goes ‘above and beyond’ their day job to help make San Diego a better place, whether through philanthropy, volunteerism, vision, action, etc.
About nine years ago, EDC added a second award in memory of Duane Roth, another beloved San Diego leader and a tireless promoter of San Diego’s innovation economy. By contrast, this award would recognize a business or institution (not an individual) that was ‘changing the world from San Diego’ through technology, science, or innovation (think Qualcomm, the Salk Institute, Illumina, etc.). Duane was passionate about San Diego’s smart and life-changing companies and ideas, and this was EDC’s way of honoring his leadership, service, and memory.
Over the last few years, we have made efforts to ensure that the criteria for these awards are not only reflective of the leaders who inspired them, but of the changes in EDC’s work—with continued alignment to our core values of integrity, accountability, collaboration, and inclusion. The awards have now become known as our “Life. Changing. Awards,” an ode to our region’s brand identity and reflective of the EDC that businesses and individuals are investing in today. And if there were ever two words that could encapsulate the impact of Herb Klein and Duane Roth, those would certainly be them.
Meet our 2024 awardees
This year, our individual award will be given to (retired) Vice Admiral Jim Zortman. Admiral Zortman is one of the most highly decorated Naval officers to call San Diego home. He is the former Commanding Officer for Naval Air Forces, San Diego and Naval Air Forces, Pacific Fleet. He is also the retired Senior and Sector Vice President for Global Logistics and Operations Support for Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems. While at Northrop Grumman, he led the effort to make San Diego the company’s ‘center for excellence’ for unmanned systems. Admiral Zortman also served on the Chairman’s Competitiveness Council—a group of senior business and university leaders who worked to carve out meaningful and independent directions and focus areas for EDC, the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, and Connect. He served on EDC’s board of directors and executive committee for more than 10 years. From 2016-2018, Jim served as EDC’s board chair and made ‘economic inclusion’ his focus area and platform. Feeling he had been a part of meaningful and intentional efforts made by the U.S. military to strengthen and diversify its officer ranks, and by Northrop Grumman to increase the number of women and people of color within its engineering, technical, and executive workforce, Jim felt that EDC could be a powerful catalyst to establish inclusion as an economic imperative within the San Diego region. Since Jim’s time as chair, every new EDC board chair has continued to build off the foundation he established and has kept inclusion at the forefront of EDC’s goals and work, which now so many of you have committed to and engaged in with us.
We will be presenting this year’s business award to a legendary San Diego company—Solar Turbines.
Noorfadzreena Binti Mahmud, Field Service Supervisor and Eliza Porterfield, District Service Manager At the Customer Experience Center in San Diego California
Solar Turbines designs and manufactures industrial gas turbines for onshore and offshore electrical power generation, for marine propulsion, and for producing, processing, and transporting natural gas and oil. Headquartered in San Diego for nearly a century, Solar Turbines has more than 8,000 employees in dozens of countries around the world, with the majority of them working in the San Diego region. For decades, the company has represented the best elements of our binational economy with substantial manufacturing operations in Tijuana/Northern Baja. Solar Turbines has been a constant partner and investor in workforce development and training programs throughout San Diego and Imperial Counties, and has one of the most dedicated and diverse workforces in our region. It is also important to note that the corporate leadership of Solar Turbines has chosen to remain in San Diego and California despite aggressive efforts by other states to lure them away.
As champions of our organizational core values, examples of what Duane Roth and Herb Klein stood for, and critical partners in building a stronger, more vibrant, and more inclusive region, we could not be prouder to recognize Admiral Jim Zortman and Solar Turbines with our 2024 Life. Changing. Awards. Hoping that you will all join us at Petco Park on June 18 to give them the celebration and thanks they deserve.
For more than a decade, EDC has presented awards at our Annual Dinner to recognize an individual who goes ‘above and beyond’ their day job to help make San Diego a better place and a business or institution changing the world from San Diego. This year, EDC is proud to present the individual award to one of the most highly decorated Naval officers to call San Diego home (retired) Vice Admiral Jim Zortman and the business award to legendary San Diego company Solar Turbines.
Every week, ‘Good News of the Week’ features a curation of positive headlines from San Diego, delivered straight to your inbox. A blend of aggregated stories from San Diego’s most trusted news sources and original EDC-created content, GNOTW provides a comprehensive recap of the region’s best stories from the past week. GNOTW is sponsored by Manpower San Diego.
Get Good News of the Week in your inbox every Friday.→ Sign up
For the week of April 5, 2024, here’s what we’re reading:
Case study: EDC, regional partners cut ribbon on new Samsung Semiconductor sales office
Together with Mayor Gloria and the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, EDC supported Samsung Semiconductor in celebrating the opening of its new Memory and Foundry customer engagement office. Supporting 20 staff and counting, the office marks the start of more regional expansion and will serve customers in San Diego and Southern California.
Every week, ‘Good News of the Week’ features a curation of positive headlines from San Diego, delivered straight to your inbox. A blend of aggregated stories from San Diego’s most trusted news sources and original EDC-created content, GNOTW provides a comprehensive recap of the region’s best stories from the past week. GNOTW is sponsored by Manpower San Diego.
Get Good News of the Week in your inbox every Friday.→ Sign up
For the week of March 29, 2024, here’s what we’re reading:
U.S. Commercial Service Export Compliance Roadshow
Join World Trade Center San Diego for a dynamic one-day program on April 17 featuring speakers from the U.S. Commercial Service, the Bureau of Industry and Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and more. Whether you’re a seasoned exporter or new to the international market, this event will equip you with the network, knowledge, and tools necessary to navigate exporting while adhering to critical regulations.
Every week, ‘Good News of the Week’ features a curation of positive headlines from San Diego, delivered straight to your inbox. A blend of aggregated stories from San Diego’s most trusted news sources and original EDC-created content, GNOTW provides a comprehensive recap of the region’s best stories from the past week. GNOTW is sponsored by Manpower San Diego.
Get Good News of the Week in your inbox every Friday.→ Sign up
For the week of March 22, 2024, here’s what we’re reading:
Join World Trade Center San Diego for a dynamic one-day program on April 17 featuring speakers from the U.S. Commercial Service, the Bureau of Industry and Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and more. Whether you’re a seasoned exporter or new to the international market, this event will equip you with the network, knowledge, and tools necessary to navigate exporting while adhering to critical regulations.
Every week, ‘Good News of the Week’ features a curation of positive headlines from San Diego, delivered straight to your inbox. A blend of aggregated stories from San Diego’s most trusted news sources and original EDC-created content, GNOTW provides a comprehensive recap of the region’s best stories from the past week. GNOTW is sponsored by Manpower San Diego.
Get Good News of the Week in your inbox every Friday.→ Sign up
For the week of March 15, 2024, here’s what we’re reading:
EDC invites you to Annual Dinner, our signature event of the year, gathering more than 900 business and community leaders to celebrate our region and organization. We are back at Petco Park and promise great food, thoughtful conversations with your colleagues and friends, and a short program. Sponsorship opportunities available, contact Jennifer Storm for more information.
