Category: News

World Trade Center San Diego and UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS) jointly launched its 2017 Global Forum programming in February. The initiative, sponsored by Bank of America, offers GPS’s high-profile, visiting scholars a chance to address the region’s local business community. The first Global Forum program of 2017 featured the Former Minister of Foreign Affairs in Japan, the Honorable Yoriko Kawaguchi. Topics included the future of the U.S.-Japan relationship in a post-Trans Pacific Partnership world, the diplomatic relationship between the two countries and more.

See more from GPS.

“February’s data shows unemployment rates dropping for the majority of jurisdictions in the region. Meanwhile, job posting intensity has steadily declined suggesting that employers are filling jobs more rapidly. Management, training and communications are among the most in-demand skills in current job postings. And while technical skills are still expected of job-seekers, the ability to work with and develop others is key.” – Phil Blair, President & CEO, Manpower

Each month the California Employment Development Department (EDD) releases unemployment data for the prior month. Due to annual revisions, EDD did not release employment data in the month of February but released two reports in March. This edition of San Diego’s Economic Pulse covers February data and references the second of two reports from March.

Highlights include:

• Compared to a year ago, total nonfarm employment is up 26,700, or 1.9 percent, with 19,800 of those jobs coming from the private sector.
• San Diego’s unemployment rate remains lower than both the California rate of 5.2 percent and the national rate of 4.9 percent.
• Fourteen of the region’s jurisdictions saw year-over-year growth in monthly new establishments, above the regional rate of 26 percent.

New Businesses by Jurisdiction, Feb 2017:

Read San Diego’s Economic Pulse here.

The Duane Roth Renaissance Award is named in memory of a beloved community leader who tirelessly championed San Diego’s innovation ecosystem and reframed how we view our economic diversity. Presented at EDC’s Annual Dinner each year, this award recognizes an organization whose work is creating outstanding inventions, innovations or breakthroughs that have changed and improved the world around us.

EDC is deeply honored to announce the Salk Institute for Biological Studies as the 2017 Honoree of the Duane Roth Renaissance Award, presented by:

Founded in 1960 after Jonas Salk developed the first effective polio vaccine, Salk Institute is among the top five research institutions in the world. The San Diego institute is pushing boundaries of scientific discovery around cancer and immunology, aging, diabetes, brain science and plant biology. Salk has been issued 560 patents, while 38 new companies have spun out of its discoveries. Strengthened by its diversity, there are 46 countries represented by Salk faculty, staff and students.

Please join us at EDC’s Annual Dinner to celebrate Salk and more, April 20.

Today, San Diego Mayor Faulconer announced The City of San Diego has been awarded a $1.6 million grant from the Department of Defense’s Office of Economic Adjustment to support the resiliency and growth of local defense contractors.

The City of San Diego and key partners, including San Diego Regional EDC, County of San Diego, San Diego Military Advisory Council, East County Economic Development Council and South County Economic Development Corporation – collectively named Propel San Diego – will deploy programs to support the region’s defense ecosystem.

Leveraging the grant, the Propel San Diego team will concentrate on economic development strategies for companies expanding in or at risk of leaving the region. As part of this work, Propel San Diego will create a database of all defense firms in San Diego County and deploy an interactive tool to explain and model changes in defense spending activity.

Home to the largest concentration of military assets in the world, San Diego’s economy is inextricably linked to the national defense ecosystem. According to SDMAC, the total economic impact of the defense industry is nearly $45 billion.

Defense-related organizations are as diverse as San Diego’s key industries and include companies specializing in aerospace, maritime, unmanned vehicles, robotics, autonomous systems, cybersecurity, advanced manufacturing and more.

Leveraging DoD support, Propel San Diego programs aim to help San Diego retain highly-skilled talent and create increased stability for defense companies in an increasingly uncertain defense budget world.

Propel San Diego sentiments:

• “San Diego is proud of its military roots and our defense industry plays an integral role in our local economy,” Mayor Faulconer said . “This grant will help support our local defense contractors so they can keep creating the kind of good-paying jobs San Diegans deserve.”
• “From Qualcomm’s mobile technology to Cubic’s smart card systems and ViaSat’s broadband satellites, some of the world’s most game-changing technology is rooted in San Diego’s defense industry. Supporting the commercialization and visibility of the region’s defense-related firms, small and large, is critical to economic growth. The OEA grant and Propel San Diego collaborative enables us to do just that,” said Mark Cafferty, president and CEO of San Diego Regional EDC.
• “The Propel San Diego initiative and OEA funding will enable a complete technology refresh of East County Economic Development Council‘s Connectory.com Network, an online resource that contains detailed capabilities profiles of industrial and technology companies across all industries,” said Joe Mackey, chair of the East County EDC board and CEO of XL Staffing and XL Security. “An upgraded Connectory that takes advantage of big data analytics will allow Propel San Diego to understand and track the wide, deep and diverse defense supply chain resident in the San Diego region, now and into the future.”
• “SDMAC is honored and excited to be a recipient of the OEA grant. We look forward to playing a key role in facilitating the exchange of contractual information that will keep business in the San Diego region,” said Randy Bogle, executive director of San Diego Military Advisory Council.

For more information, visit OEA.gov.

In conjunction with AECOM, EDC released an economic impact assessment of FS Investors’ proposed SoccerCity development. The analysis estimates the potential economic and fiscal impacts of the large mixed-use development, which is planned to include a 30,000 seat Major League Soccer stadium, approximately 4,800 residential units, more than 2 million sq. ft. of office, 740,000 sq. ft. of retail space, and 55 acres of open space and park land. This development would be located at the current Qualcomm stadium site in San Diego’s Mission Valley.

Economic impacts of development proposal have been estimated for both the City of San Diego and the County of San Diego. This includes impacts from construction and impacts from operations at a future year at full buildout and stable occupancy. Additionally, annual fiscal impacts to the general fund have been estimated for the City of San Diego from operations of the proposed development at a future year at full buildout and stable occupancy.

Construction Economic Impacts to the County of San Diego

Annual Operations Economic Impacts for the County of San Diego

The above information does not imply EDC’s endorsement of the SoccerCity SD proposal and should not be taken as such.

Understanding our economy begins with strong data. Lucky for us, Feb/March means lots of it.

A little about the research products released this week:

• Quarterly Economic Snapshot: February Every quarter, San Diego Regional EDC analyzes key economic indicators that are important to understanding the region’s standing relative to the 25 most populous metropolitan areas in the U.S. The Economic Snapshot covers data from October to December 2016 ( Q4), the most recent quarter available, in regard to employment, real estate and venture capital.

  Release time: Data from the previous quarter is available at the end of the second month of the current quarter (e.g. data from Q4 2016 is released late Feb. 2017; data from Q12017 will be released late May 2017)

• San Diego’s Economic Pulse: March
  Monthly, the California Employment Development Department releases countywide employment and unemployment data. However, we know unemployment is only a small sliver of understanding our economy. EDC supplements this report by adding information on who’s hiring, business establishments and job postings.Release time: The California Employment Development Department typically releases the previous months data on the third Friday of every month (e.g. Data from April 2017 will be release on May 19, 2017). However, the first few months of the year are on a revised schedule, as January is subjected to seasonal changes as some service sectors wind down from the holidays and other data is being adjusted from the previous year. Therefore, January’s data was released on March 3, 2017.

Authored by Nathan Loveland, economic development intern, PLNU student and U.S. Coast Guard veteran

Because San Diego is home to the largest federal military workforce in the country, it is critical that we routinely make efforts to assist service members taking the leap of faith to transition into civilian life. That’s why in February, EDC partnered with University of San Diego’s Graduate School of Business to host the military transition event, Link2 Defense. The event served to connect transitioning military members to local defense contractors and shed light on the job opportunities available across San Diego.

Representatives from local companies General Dynamics NASSCO, ESET, ViaSat, Qualcomm, Sentek, Northrop Grumman and Cubic shared information on company-specific programming for veterans, while some – veterans themselves – shared insight about their transition into civilian careers. Moderated by USD School of Business Executive Director Stath Karras and zero8hundred CEO Sean Mahoney, the back-to-back panel discussions addressed topics including resume building, job hunting and converting military specific jobs/skills into civilian equivalent work.

As an economics student at PLNU, an intern for EDC and a U.S. Coast Guard veteran, I attended Link2 Defense to continue to hone in on my skills as I further my education and pursue a civilian career.

The event was top notch. Representatives from USD gave valuable insight on how maximize VA education benefits in multiple ways. In addition to the panel sessions, the event included small group breakout sessions covering topics like resume building hosted by Manpower, techniques for job hunting and salary negotiation. I attended the salary negotiations seminar and look forward to using these tactics in my future job hunt – Look out, future employer.

After attending Link2, I feel extremely confident in my decision to transition from the military to purse my education and career in the San Diego region. I feel the opportunities provided to San Diego’s veterans are superior in comparison to other cities I’ve lived.

Every quarter, San Diego Regional EDC analyzes key economic indicators that are important to understanding the region’s standing relative to the 25 most populous metropolitan areas in the U.S.

The Economic Snapshot covers data from October to December 2016 (Q4), the most recent quarter available, in regard to employment, real estate and venture capital.

Highlights include:

• The San Diego region had the 14th lowest unemployment rate amongst the top 25 metros. This ranking is down four spots from Q2 2016.
• The region’s unemployment rate of 4.2 percent continues to be lower than the national and state rates of 4.5 and 5.0 percent, respectively.
• The region’s unemployment rate decreased by 0.5 percentage points between Q3 and Q4 2016, the 9th largest decrease among major metros.
• Year-over-year, the region has added 28,900 jobs – a 2.0 percent increase.
• With the exception of manufacturing, all of the region’s sectors experienced year-over-year growth. Leading the way was real estate and rental leasing which increased by 6.1 percent or 1,700 jobs.
• The largest venture capital investments were in disease diagnosis, internet software and services and biotechnology companies. The top two deals accounted for 44.1 percent of the region’s total investment for the quarter, or $79 million.

Check out the full Quarterly Economic Snapshot here.

Brought to you by:

The largest city in the state of Baja California, Tijuana sits at one of busiest land border crossings in the world. Together with San Diego, Tijuana is part of a dynamic cross-border metropolis where deep economic and cultural linkages result in the creation of value, jobs and exports. The unique dynamics of this mega-region provide local companies with an important comparative advantage in the global economy. Since April 2016, EDC has participated in a greater initiative to streamline cross-border economic development efforts by refining our approach to servicing corporate retention, expansion and attraction interests. This “bilateral cities exchange” called for a deeper understanding of Tijuana’s economy as a critical component of economic growth throughout the region.

As such, EDC partnered with UC San Diego’s Center for US-Mexican Studies to create an economic overview of Tijuana – a seven-page document that provides a data-driven summary of Tijuana’s economic drivers, talent, quality of life, global connectivity and cost. This resource will help inform clients and partners of Tijuana’s diversifying economy while touching on the unique benefits of doing business in our binational mega-region.

Highlights include:

• Economy: Tijuana is a medical device manufacturing powerhouse; 97 companies employ 21,000 workers who produced $600M worth of product in 2014.

• In 2015, Tijuana graduated more than 8,000 university-level students – 29 percent of which received STEM degrees.
• Tijuana ranked #8 on the New York Times’ 2017 list of must-visit destinations around the world.

• Between 2012 and 2016, FDI in Baja totaled $5.6 billion – 63 percent of which came from the U.S. Other sources of FDI include South Korea, the Netherlands, Japan and Spain.

• When compared to China, Mexico is estimated to have 13 percent lower labor costs and an overall average direct manufacturing cost that is four percentage points cheaper than China.

Read the Tijuana Regional Profile here.

Like CES for maritime… San Diego welcomed the world’s leading marine science and ocean technology exhibition and conference this week. Oceanology International (OI) – launched in London in 1969 – kicked off its first North American conference at the San Diego Convention Center, bringing together more than 1,500 attendees and 150 maritime technology companies from more than 13 countries. Led by The Maritime Alliance and with the support of EDC, OI will be a biennial event in San Diego, switching to London in off-years.

The tradeshow connected companies and consumers from across the world, and served to help improve strategies for developing, protecting and operating in the world’s oceans.

Why San Diego?

With 70 miles of coastline, a concentrated military presence and innovation-driven technology companies, San Diego has emerged as a hub for maritime technology. Driving this point home, local companies large and small set up shop at Oceanology International North America – from Ocean Aero with its unmanned surface and underwater vehicles to SonTek with its underwater sensors, or Planck Aerosystems that can land an aerial drone autonomously on a moving vessel. Attendees got first-hand access to current and impending innovation in maritime and bluetech.