• In the last year, (Sept. 2010 – Sept. 2011) California has added 250,700 new jobs, an increase of 1.8 percent.
  • In the last year, California added more jobs than any other state in the nation. (California added over 3,000 more new jobs than the next closest state, Texas).
  • If you exclude job losses in construction and government employment, California’s job growth rate over the past year is 2.1 percent.
  • California has shed the largest number of government employees in the country since the beginning of the recession. In total, 116,600 government jobs were eliminated since September 2007. (Texas has added 76,000 government jobs since the start of the recession.)
  • Since the beginning of the 2011, California has added almost 140,000 new jobs (Sept. 2011).
  • California has more high tech jobs than any other state with 931,000 people employed in high tech jobs. The next closest states are Texas with 492,000 (less than half) and New York with 312,000.
  • California has the highest number of green jobs in the U.S. with over 300,000 Californian’s employed in high paying green jobs, a workforce second only to high tech.
  • California’s 2,224 biomedical companies employ 268,000 people. The industry accounts for $114 billion in annual revenues – which is more than the annual gross domestic product (GDP) of Vietnam or Morocco.
  • California is the No.1 state for venture capital (VC). California receives four times more venture capital than the national average.
  • California is the No. 1 state for attracting foreign direct investment.
  • California is the No. 1 state in for agriculture revenues, with $34.8 billion in revenue
  • representing 12.3 percent of the U.S. total.
  • California’s 3.5 million small businesses represent the largest network of small employers of any state. California’s small businesses account for 99.2% of the state’s firms, employing 52.1% of the workforce.
  • California is home to 53 of the U.S. Fortune 500 companies.

 For more information, visit the California Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (www.business.ca.gov) or contact Deputy Director, Brook Taylor at Brook.Taylor@gov.ca.gov.