The effort to reduce unemployment is a grueling plant-by-plant, job-by-job process conducted by those seeking work, business people and local officials operating far from the media spotlight and simplistic rhetoric of the political campaign.
Progress is measured in what amounts to inches—a job gained or a small plant coming to town. A manufacturer of campers for heavy trucks keeping up with trends by producing travel trailers light enough to be towed by small SUVs is a move that could save and even add jobs, but it’s not a story hot enough for cable TV and that medium’s obsession with the latest political chatter. Yet these small stories give a more realistic look at the difficulty of dropping the national unemployment rate below its present 8.2 percent.
The Antelope Valley is a suburban area north of Los Angeles on the western tip of the Mojave Desert. The area, where the demographics are remarkably similar to portions of the Midwest, has been hit by all aspects of the Great Recession. The aerospace industry, which once provided a wealth of jobs, has dwindled. The housing bust forced families out of foreclosed homes, sometimes into homelessness. All this struck with devastating financial and psychological suddenness in a place that tends to be conservative, and where evangelical Christians have a strong presence among people unprepared for such a blow.
“I have lived through recessions before, but nothing like this,” said Vern Lawson, economic development director of the area’s largest city, Lancaster. I had stopped by the city hall to find out what it was doing about unemployment. Lancaster, a city of 156,000, has an unemployment rate of slightly more than 15 percent, according to the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s down from 20 percent in 2010.
“I think we hit bottom and are coming back,” Lawson said. In a grim sense, the collapse of the residential housing market has helped. Houses are more affordable now, either for purchase or rent, and workers can earn a lower wage and still “have a very nice home,” Lawson said.
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This is an area where Lockheed once employed more than 18,000, currently down to about 6,500. Now Lawson, City Manager Mark Bozigian, Mayor R. Rex Parris and other officials considered it a huge victory that Morton Manufacturing, which makes bolts for aircraft engines, moved to Lancaster from another suburb after the city found land for a bigger plant. It will employ 300, and support 1,200 more jobs from suppliers and businesses patronized by the workers. To orchestrate the move, Lawson had to visit Morton often, work with property owners and real estate agents to assemble the land, get the City Council to build roads, and be available 24 hours a day in case something went wrong.
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