Nissan is moving to Tennessee

[bob007]

QUALCOMM keeps hiring

[equalizer]

I had a “converation” with someone a few weeks ago about this topic. I asked him how many employees they had 10 years ago and how many they have today. BTW it thousands less. It was like talking to a wall. But, but they are hiring. Yeah, if you can redesign a chip on the first day on the job, youre hired. Good luck everyone on that job interview, if you get one.

[bob007]

QUALCOMM exited the infrastructure and cellphone businesses. Ericsson bought the infrastructure business. Kyocera purchased the handset business.

[lindismith]

lindismith, can you comment on the latest 2 companies to leave CA? (Nissan, Sanyo)

I have done business with Sanyo in the past. (Supplying them with polybags.) It is just a small part of my own business, but it illustrates the impact a large company has in a geographic region. Not only have those jobs left, but all the small and medium-sized businesses doing business on the periphery are affected. It will not be a huge loss for me, but incrementally these losses add up. The printer no longer prints business cards, the janitorial services aren’t needed, the security firms, the gas station on the corner, the restaurants etc. etc. Businesses in Tennessee will now get all that business. It is the same for Nissan leaving Gardena.

I don’t hear of companies moving to San Diego either.

I don’t know what can be done to stop these companies from leaving.

If it isn’t the high energy costs,

Energy costs are high. People don’t talk about it, but I remember when Enron was gouging California a couple of years ago, the pizza guy on the corner closed down because his electric bill went from $200/month to $900. It will be interesting to see what happens when everyone gets their a/c bill for July in a couple of weeks. (Relatedly, I have heard that people will only start taking climate change seriously when it hits their pocket books. Is this the start?)

high taxes and workers comp costs get you

I don’t think taxes are that high (relative to other countries,) but yeah, our second biggest bill behind the rent is workman’s comp. Arnie has provided some relief, but it’s not enough. As a medium-sized business, I (personally as a biz-owner) would have so much more income if I wasn’t paying what I pay in workman’s comp. It’s really still out of control in my opinion.

[bob007]

the green belt types are partially responsible for the electricity consumption in the short run. they have prevented construction in Silicon Valley and coastal california driving tens of thousands of folks to the Central Valley and Inland Empire. Guess what those places become hot in summer driving up AC demand.

[sdrealtor]

Correct me if I’m wrong but I dont remember big companies coming to SD en mass at any point in time. To my knowledge, SD has been an incubator of start-up companies and has never been home to lots of corporate giants. The successful ones grew big enough to be acquired by an industry giant and typically get consolidated into the parents ops somewhere else. Its been that way as long as I can remember things (i.e. back to the mid-80’s). SD has always attracted entrepreneurs, creative minds and researchers that are drawn to exericising their passion in our beautiful climate/envirnoment.

The big companies that are hear typically have had relatively small satelitte ops here. Outside of Qualcomm, what major employers, I’m talking 5 to 10K employees, have been headquartered in SD in the last 20 years outside of the 2 big defense contractors that disappeared in the early 90’s?

Can someone help shead some light here?

[lindismith]

The big employers I know are SAIC, UCSD, and Qualcomm. I believe they are the 3 biggest.

If I have time, I’ll research this. I want to because I had to laugh out loud last week when someone wrote that people would be able to handle their ARM adjustments because they would get big increases in pay. San Diego has notoriously had no businesses headquartered here (and thus very few high-paying jobs), and is extremely low on the salary scale to begin with.

[(former)FormerSanDiegan]

SAIC

SAIC Corporate Headquarters:
10260 Campus Point Drive
San Diego, CA 92121

Founded by Dr. J. Robert Beyster and a small group of scientists in 1969, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a Fortune 500® company, now ranks as the largest employee-owned research and engineering firm in the United States. SAIC and its subsidiaries have more than 43,000 employees with offices in over 150 cities worldwide.

[bob007]

there are a lot of mid-sized tech companies

[sdrealtor]

Well UCSD isnt going anywhere and is a public institution like the government and health care systems so you can throw those out of the mix because they will always be here. So that’s 2, certainly not alot for a metropolitan area like this which is exactly my point. Does the SD economy does hinge on major corporate employers?

BTW, large employers bring lots of jobs but not always high paying jobs. Small employers don’t bring lots of jobs on their own but often bring high paying jobs. Several years ago I worked at a start up company which peaked at 25 employees. More than half made 6 figures and several of us made over $200K before we sold the company and cashed out. One of the things SD has going for it is that there arent many large employers that could single handedly bring our economy to a halt.

[CardiffBaseball]

SAIC has more employees in McLean, VA than SD, however SD is the Corporate HQ.

[smfj]

Link to San Diego County Largest Employers (looks like it’s from 2004 so may be a little outdated – but a starting point):

http://www.sddt.com/Databases/BusinessListings/ListCompanies.cfm?BusinessCategory_ID=205

A sample:

United States Navy, San Diego 42,000-35,000 military, 7,000, civilian
Federal Government 38,700
State of California 37,100
University of California, San Diego 24,790
San Diego Unified School District 21,073
City of San Diego 20,700
County of San Diego 18,900
Sharp HealthCare 13,269
United States Postal Service 11,611
Scripps Health 10,313
Kaiser Foundation Hospital 7,386
Qualcomm Inc. 6,000
San Diego Community College District 5,600
Sempra Energy 5,500
Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) 4,667

It doesn’t matter where a company is headquartered – the majority of their employees could be somewhere else (this is the case with the large public company that I work for – our corporate office is here, with a small number of employees, just because our CEO wants to be here). For example, based on this info, almost half of Callaway’s employees are elsewhere, 75% of Qualcomm, only 10% of SAIC employees are here.

By the way, I’ve been lurking here for over a year, but I’ve decided to chime in a bit more lately. I guess the activity has picked up so much that I felt I had to jump in. Cool to see the growth over the past year.

[sdrealtor]

So basically out of the top employers comprising over 250,000, there are roughly 10,000 jobs (QCOM+SAIC)that “could” leave the area while the rest are pretty much anchored here.

[lindismith]

yes, that sounds about right.

What’s crazy is that all but 2 in the top 10 are gov.

[powayseller]

The UCLA Anderson Forecast predicts a vulnerable period ahead for all government, as property and tax revenues decrease. Thorberg said Arnie’s infrastructure dreams won’t materialize. Many city governments are already in the red, and today the Voice published a story about Chula Vista’s pension problems.

[Author]

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