Manufacturing down across California

Manufacturing down across California Despite the recent boom in exports fueled by the sinking U.S. dollar, 2007 was bleak for manufacturers in California, according to an annual study released last week of the state's industry.
   California industrial employment fell 1 percent from February 2007to February 2008, according to the 2008 Directory of California Manufacturers compiled by the Evanston, Ill.-based Manufacturers' News Inc.
   The MNI annual study found that California has lost 16,055 jobs and 564 manufacturers in the last 12 months.
   “Even though manufacturing activity is at a record high, outsourcing, consolidation and increased technology have contributed to industrial employment declines across the nation,” said Tom Dubin, president of MNI. “However, California’s 1 percent loss is slight when compared to losses seen in other major industrial states over the past several years.”
   Despite the decline, MNI found that California is still the nation's largest manufacturing state and home to nearly 27,000 manufacturers and about 1.65 million jobs. California, according to MNI, accounts for 8.7 percent of the nation’s total manufacturing employment and 7 percent of its total manufacturers.
   Southern California suffered more than half of the state's reported job losses, reporting a 1 percent loss, or more than 9,000 jobs, during the past year. The five-county Southern California region now accounts for 1.05 million, of 64 percent of all state industrial jobs, MNI said.
   Northern California was down by about 7,000 industrial manufacturing jobs, or 1.2 percent for the year.
   Among cities, Los Angeles ranks fourth in the nation for industrial jobs and seventh nationally for manufacturers. This despite the city losing 3.5 percent of its roughly 100,000 manufacturing jobs and 4.4 percent of the city's nearly 1,900 manufacturers last year.
   MNI also found that despite a 3.2 percent drop over the past year, electronics manufacturing remained the state’s largest manufacturing sector with 264,226 industrial jobs, or 16 percent of the state’s entire manufacturing employment. In fact, 13 percent of the nation's electronic manufacturers are located in California.