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.
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For the week of May 13, 2022, here’s what we’re reading:
May 19 – Finnish American Chamber of Commerce San Diego Business Mixer
EDC Monthly Report: April 2022
With and through nearly 200 investors, EDC works to maximize San Diego’s prosperity. From connecting companies to tax credits to connecting taking small businesses online, here’s what EDC did in April 2022.
World Trade Center San Diego (WTCSD)’s MetroConnect awards companies with matching funds, connects them with relevant export-oriented partners and resources, and arranges specialized workshops to increase their knowledge and awareness of global export trends and regulations.
Since the program’s debut in 2015, the 80 small- and medium-sized MetroConnect companies have collectively added 269 new regional jobs, signed more than 543 new contracts, and set up 22 new overseas facilities. Notable alumni include Scientist.com, Dr. Bronner’s, Cypher Genomics (acquired by Human Longevity Inc.), Planck Aerosystems, White Labs, and more.
Now, WTCSD is pleased to welcome the newest group of MetroConnect companies representing the diversity of San Diego’s innovation economy. Below, meet the Life Sciences companies:
Meet the four Life Sciences companies going global with MetroConnect:
Description: Nano PharmaSolutions’ NanoTransformer™ technology turns insoluble drug molecules to nanoparticles so they can be more effectively absorbed.
Key bottlenecks: Building out international marketing plan, outreach to identify prospects
Description: iAssay®’s Point-of-Care Test (POCT) diagnostics solution tests patients wherever they are. Multi-tech/format POCT cartridges commercialized by hundreds of companies are used with iAssay® designed adaptors. Its AWS Cloud validates devices before testing can start, captures raw data, and offers time/date stamped results available through internet portals.
Key bottlenecks: Building out international marketing plan, outreach to identify prospects
Description: As manufacturers deal with variable raw material quality, rising costs for energy, and increased quality standards for their finished products, Solecta helps improve separations processes through membrane solutions like microfiltration, ultrafiltration, nanofiltration, and reverse osmosis filtration products.
Key bottlenecks: Effective outreach to potential clients, targeted market research, local language barriers, understanding of local regulatory requirements
What’s next?
The 15 MetroConnect VI companies will gain access to a suite of resources to support expansion into international markets, including executive workshops, flight discounts, language translation, and up to $30,000 in grant funding.
“Programs like MetroConnect help ensure the world knows just what San Diego is made of—innovative, high-impact products and services across a wide range of industries,” said San Diego City Councilmember Raul Campillo. “I’m proud to support and welcome WTCSD’s new cohort, and look forward to seeing the companies’ impact on a global scale.”
Interested in growing your business internationally?
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.
Get Good News of the Week in your inbox every Friday.→ Sign up
For the week of May 6, 2022, here’s what we’re reading:
San Diego Biz Hub: Free digital services for small businesses
GoSite and EDC are still accepting applications for the San Diego Business Hub, which offers small, service-based businesses the full suite of GoSite products at no cost. Services include payment and invoicing, bookings, review management, customer communications, and template websites.
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.
Get Good News of the Week in your inbox every Friday.→ Sign up
For the week of April 29, 2022, here’s what we’re reading:
Case Study: Left Coast Engineering leverages Advancing San Diego to hire intern, strengthen talent pipeline
Like many companies during the pandemic, Left Coast Engineering faced challenges in accessing a diverse talent pool and building up its workforce. EDC’s talent initiative Advancing San Diego stepped in to help.
The Downtown San Diego Partnership, together with the City of San Diego and San Diego Regional EDC released the findings from the 2021 Downtown Demographics Study. Among findings about Downtown’s residential population, workforce, and attractions, the study confirmed that Downtown is uniquely primed for a post-pandemic resurgence of residential and business growth due to several key factors.
“What we found most exciting about this research is that it confirmed through data what we’ve long heard from Downtown residents and stakeholders,” said Betsy Brennan, president & CEO for the Downtown San Diego Partnership. “Downtown is primed with a talented residential workforce that desires to live and work in our urban core. This, in combination with ongoing investment in world-class commercial and research spaces with access to the region’s enhanced transit system and a vibrant neighborhood lifestyle for residents, businesses and visitors alike, tells us that there is no better time to invest in Downtown.”
Authored by EDC, in coordination with UC San Diego Extension’s Center for Research and Evaluation, the update provides new data on the residential and workforce populations of San Diego’s urban core, identifies areas for growth, opportunities for investment and advocacy, as well as a benchmark for the impacts of COVID-19. It’s intent is to serve as a helpful tool for anyone hoping to understand Downtown’s unique makeup and continue to fuel decisions to advance the economic prosperity and cultural vitality of the city’s urban core for years to come.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Downtown’s residents are young, urban professionals primarily working in innovation industries and earning higher-than-average wages. The vibrancy of urban living is what they like about living Downtown and they would even prefer to work there if given the choice, though the cost of living remains higher in Downtown than the County at large.
Downtown’s over concentration of the most in-demand talent, combined with an increasing supply of commercial real estate, present timely opportunities for high growth companies – particularly Life Science and Technology companies securing record-breaking investment – who are seeking top talent surrounded by the amenities they desire.
Downtown’s legacy industry clusters are more vulnerable to economic downturns, making diversification advantageous. Job losses during 2020 erased the gains of the previous four years.
Downtown is widely viewed as a hub for arts and culture, as well as a top destination for professional networking and gathering.
“While San Diego’s innovation economy continues to drive the region’s recovery from the COVID-19-spurred economic downturn, we must ensure the building blocks of this recovering economy—quality jobs, skilled talent and thriving households—are accessible to more people,” said Mark Cafferty, president and CEO of EDC. “The data confirms that the pillars to build a more resilient economy through continued investment into Downtown by new, growing and diversified industries are in place and ready. More than ever, smart economic development means inclusive economic development.”
The Downtown Partnership first commissioned a demographic study in 2016, then a new tool for the organization’s advocacy efforts and the Downtown community. Providing an in-depth look at San Diego’s urban core and capturing a moment in time of the market’s recovery following the pandemic, the 2021 study was funded by the City of San Diego’s Economic Development Department, DSDP Clean & Safe Commercial Enhancement Program, Stockdale Capital Partners, and Urban Strategies Group.
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.
Get Good News of the Week in your inbox every Friday.→ Sign up
For the week of April 22, 2022, here’s what we’re reading:
Presented by Meyers Nave, this edition of San Diego’s Data Bites covers March 2022, with data on employment, investment, and more insights about the region’s economy. Key takeaways include a drop in the region’s unemployment rate and Leisure and Hospitality employment gains.
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.
Get Good News of the Week in your inbox every Friday.→ Sign up
For the week of April 15, 2022, here’s what we’re reading:
ICYMI: A progress report on San Diego’s 2030 Inclusive Growth goals
While San Diego’s innovation economy has made the region more prosperous, it perpetuates economic disparities in ways that threaten San Diego’s competitiveness and resilience. With new data and bold goals toward increasing the number of skilled talent, quality jobs, and thriving households, leaders in the private and public sectors, education, and philanthropy offered their shared commitments to economic inclusion.
This is the title of a book I recently started reading about applying stoic philosophy to everyday, modern life. The core teaching is to turn adversity into advantage. Obstacles, both predictable and unforeseen, are not an impediment to growth or progress but rather the path to achieving our goals—it’s a matter of perspective.
EDC and a steering committee of the region’s largest employers determined that for our region to continue to grow and remain competitive, by 2030, San Diego will need:
50,000 quality jobs in small businesses,
20,000 skilled workers per year, and
75,000 newly thriving households.
However, to do so, inclusion needs to be our focus. To achieve these goals, we must invest in and support the segments of our community that have been historically and systemically excluded from growth and prosperity—not simply because it’s the right thing to do, but because it’s an economic imperative.
Small businesses employ 60 percent of San Diego’s workforce but struggle to compete for new customers and talent. On top of that, supply chain disruptions have impacted nearly every industry in our region. Connecting local small businesses to big, institutional buyers builds resiliency for both sides.
To keep pace with the demand for talent, we must double the production of skilled workers in our region. If San Diego’s Black and Hispanic youth were prepared for post-secondary education at the same rate as White youth, our talent shortage would become a talent surplus.
San Diego is now the most expensive major metro in the country. The rapidly rising cost of living is impacting employers’ ability to attract and retain talent. Investing in the infrastructure needed to support working families ensures that the region remains an attractive place for people to work and businesses to operate in.
That is the scale of our challenge. It is also the size of our opportunity.
Even the pandemic itself, a once-in-a-century global health crisis that has claimed the lives of nearly one million Americans, has paved a new way forward. It taught us that how and where we work can be different and better. It reaffirmed that small businesses are not just places of employment but also part of the fabric of our community. It reminded us that no matter how much technology we have at our fingertips, it is the human spirit that drives the life-changing and life-saving innovation in our region and world.
During last week’s Report to the Community, I shared that four years later progress toward these goals remains elusive. Yet, the more than 200 people in attendance reminded us that our collective commitment toward these goals will drive the region toward success.
San Diego’s future growth and competitiveness could be undermined by the inequities we currently face; or, the next wave of innovation and prosperity could be fueled by greater inclusion. It’s a matter of perspective. The obstacle is the way.
County, City, academic, and private sector leaders announce commitment to inclusive economic growth
Today at its Report to the Community event, San Diego Regional EDC shared progress against the 2030 inclusive growth goals outlined pre-pandemic in 2018. With new data and bold objectives set around increasing the number of skilled talent, quality jobs, and thriving households critical to the region’s competitiveness, County and City of San Diego officials as well as leaders in the private sector, education, and philanthropy offered their shared commitments to economic inclusion.
“EDC’s recent analysis underscores the significant impact of the pandemic on San Diego’s under-resourced communities and small businesses,” said Julian Parra, Business Banking Region Executive at Bank of America and EDC Board Chair. “To drive meaningful economic change, a diverse set of stakeholders must step up or the issues facing our economy—talent shortages, skills gaps, and a soaring cost of living—will further challenge San Diego’s economic competitiveness.”
The innovation economy has made San Diego more prosperous than many of its peers—leading the region out of the COVID-spurred economic recession as it has in past downturns—but remains inaccessible to the fastest-growing segment of the region’s population. At no surprise, the goalposts EDC outlined four years ago are now farther from reach in the wake of the pandemic.
With nearly 200 members, EDC represents just a small fraction of the region’s employers. It is only with and through a broader group of stakeholders that more quality jobs, skilled talent, and thriving households in San Diego is possible. As such, EDC has enlisted the endorsement of key regional partners and employers that have committed to using the Inclusive Growth framework to inform their priorities, tactics, and resource allocation.
Hear some of those commitments:
“The County shares a deep commitment to the framework outlined by EDC. In order to help regionalize these Inclusive Growth goals, the County has created the Office of Economic Prosperity and Community Development that will prioritize significant investments in our communities as well as uplift our local businesses,” saidVice Chair Nora Vargas, San Diego County Board of Supervisors. “Our inclusive work is centered on achieving an equitable economic recovery that ensures prosperity for all San Diegans.”
“Employing more than 1,200 San Diegans, we understand the criticality of large employers fostering a robust talent pipeline who can afford to live and thrive here,” said Jennie Brooks, Senior Vice President at Booz Allen Hamilton and EDC Vice Chair. “We are committed to advancing these goals by mentoring the next generation of women leaders through partnerships with local organizations like Girl Scouts San Diego; creating opportunities through our Mil/Tech Workforce Initiative to help military veterans build on their experiences and upskill into quality tech careers; and providing the flexibility that employees need in today’s dynamic work-life environment.”
The pandemic’s impact to progress: Jobs, talent, households
In its new analysis, available at progress.inclusivesd.org, EDC quantifies the COVID-19 pandemic’s devastating impact on the regional economy and reports progress toward the 2030 goals. Takeaways include:
QUALITY JOBS: While the region saw an overall increase in the number of quality jobs* since 2017, the disparity between quality jobs in small and large firms grew. The jobs losses of 2020 were principally concentrated in lower paying jobs at small businesses, especially those held by people of color. Meanwhile, larger firms added quality jobs in haste. In order to compete on talent, small businesses need new, reliable customers. San Diego’s large buyers can support quality job growth and ensure supply chain resilience by spending more with small, local businesses.
SKILLED TALENT: Since 2016, all job growth has been in positions that require some form of degree or credential acquired through post-secondary education (PSE). Looking forward, it is projected that 84 percent of new jobs created between now and 2030 will also require PSE. Hispanics represent one-third of San Diego’s total population but only 15 percent of degree holders. Further, nearly half of middle school students are Hispanic but are statistically the least prepared for the jobs of the future. To address employers’ hiring challenges long-term, the region must invest in college readiness for more San Diego students.
THRIVING HOUSEHOLDS: Rapidly rising home prices—up more than 30 percent in the last two years alone—coupled with jobs losses have resulted in almost 11,000 fewer thriving households** in 2020 than in 2017. Further, the region lost 3,200 licensed childcare facilities due to business closures amid the pandemic. Rising costs and access to childcare, transportation, and broadband—disproportionately felt by people of color—will leave businesses unable to retain or recruit talent from outside of the region.
While the innovation cluster has more than rebounded from the pandemic, the talent challenges employers face will only worsen and threaten their growth across San Diego. A concerted commitment to Inclusive Growth must be made; the region’s competitiveness depends on it.
The initiative is sponsored by Bank of America, HomeFed Corporation, San Diego Gas & Electric, Southwest Airlines, The San Diego Foundation, University of San Diego School of Business, City of San Diego, and County of San Diego.
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.
Get Good News of the Week in your inbox every Friday.→ Sign up
For the week of April 8, 2022, here’s what we’re reading:
San Diego Biz Hub: Free digital services for small businesses
GoSite and EDC are still accepting applications for the San Diego Business Hub, which offers small, service-based businesses the full suite of GoSite products at no cost. Services include payment and invoicing, bookings, review management, customer communications, and template websites.
