Editorials : Housing for the Workers

New government statistics show unemployment in Orange County at 3.5%, the lowest it has been in 16 years and well below California’s 7% and the nation’s 7.2%. And economic forecasters are predicting that by March, the county’s unemployment rate could drop even further, to the lowest point in 30 years.

One item that makes the county’s employment report seem so robust is the state Employment Development Department’s report that it has more than 1,500 unfilled jobs listed at its Orange County office.

That’s good news, but not nearly as good as it seems. Many of the available jobs are in the electronics field, and many others are unskilled and low-paying. That’s a serious sign that the county”s labor pool, especially in lower-income areas, is deteriorating. It is also statistical evidence for the skeptics who have been ignoring the cause and effect relationship between the lack of adequate lower-income housing and overcrowded freeways and what such conditions ultimately do to the labor market.

When people cannot find affordable housing, they move elsewhere. And when the freeways become too congested, too slow, many just stop commuting and seek jobs closer to home--in other counties. Soon companies locate, or relocate, to those areas, too. That has already started to happen to Orange County.

In a recent Times story on the unfilled jobs here, one industrial relations manager blamed the high cost of living in the county for the dearth of unskilled workers. He revealed that the condition has prompted his company to start planning a sub-assembly operation in Mexico, not to save labor costs but to ensure that it has adequate manpower.

Housing and transportation continue to be the major problems plaguing Orange County. The latest unemployment statistics give residents a glimpse of just how much they threaten the county’s future economic health if they remain unsolved.

The more people working the better. And having only 45,300 people unemployed in a community of 2.1 million is enviable. But it loses a bit of its glow when jobs go begging because people can’t afford to come and fill them.

County leaders can take a quick bow for the low unemployment rate, but then they had better straighten up and get busy. Getting busy means providing enough housing and transportation to keep a large and diversified pool of labor at home so that new industry will continue to come here and the businesses that are here now will not be forced to move or expand elsewhere.