Gov. Gavin Newsom stopped by the Medtronic campus in Irvine this morning, where county business leaders handed him their plan to boost local industry.
In the midst of the pandemic, Newsom in 2021 launched an economic development planning process that would later become, in 2023, California Jobs First. The initiative splits the state in 13 regions, with each tasked with developing a clear vision for its economic future. Orange County, which recently reassumed its rank as the world’s 4th largest economy, operates under the plan as its own region.
In 2022, each region was granted $5 million to create specific plans to develop area-specific strategies to bolster job growth.
“Los Angeles, or even the folks up there near Eureka, they all got $5 million,” Newsom said at Tuesday’s Feb. 3 press conference. “It’s about regions rising together.”
Another $9 million in state “catalyst” funding was awarded to each of the 13 regions in 2024, to go toward creating grants to turn ideas and strategies into projects ready to be implemented; those projects can then compete for other federal, state and private funding opportunities.
Nearly $1.6 billion in investments last year went toward training more than 142,000 workers and creating upwards of 61,000 new jobs across the regions, Newsom said.
The Orange County Business Council was at the forefront of creating the county’s regional plan.
The organization’s President and CEO Jeffrey Ball handed Newsom during the conference what he joked was a “modest, 700-page” framework for facilitating the area’s economic growth.
“We contracted with 27 organizations, trusted messengers in our communities,” Ball said of the process that brought about the plan. “With their engagement, we deployed surveys, social media, canvassing, community forums and more, working in 11 different languages to get input on what a stronger, more equitable and climate-forward economy should look like in Orange County.”
“We also built a steering committee of 70 organizations and individuals who have final input and say on the outcomes of this initiative — powerful effort — which yielded over 5,000 respondents,” he added.
The catalyst funding was able to support 46 projects, Ball said, which range from a wildfire-responsive recovery job training program to a job placement program for neurodivergent individuals in healthcare.
And $1 million was set aside to fund the county’s priority industry sectors, which Ball said are healthcare, med-tech, childcare, semiconductor and tourism.
The med-tech industry is a critical sector of Orange County’s economy, employing more than 21,000 workers; of the 1,552 major medical device and equipment companies in the state, more than 235 are in Orange County, according to the Greater Irvine Chamber of Commerce.
Last year, California ranked second in employment cuts nationwide, the reverberations of which were felt by at least 158,700 workers by November. Newsom was asked by reporters about this first year-over-year drop in the state since the pandemic.
“That’s exactly why we’re here. That’s what these strategies are about, and it’s exactly what I was highlighting as it relates to our larger industries and some of those job cuts we’ve seen, not just in the state of California, but across the United States,” Newsom said. “We’re losing manufacturing jobs. Why? Because of tariffs. Because of mass deportations and the impact that it’s having on labor force participation.”
“The impacts of those are disproportionate in the state of California” and on tourism, he added, a “big part of the Orange County thing.”
“So we recognize our approach needs to be organic,” he said. “To the 5,000 people who participated in the plan, job well done. We have a lot more work to do.”
