In 2016, the many announcements of employers expanding or moving here made ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ look like it was poised to boom.
Then, in mid-2017, the job numbers coming in were not just disappointing but bad. They showed that ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥, far from booming, was actually losing jobs. I was alarmed.
But in his December forecast, economist George Hammond pretty much staked his reputation on the idea that the job numbers showing losses in ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ were simply wrong, and that the March 2018 revisions to the numbers would show it.
Thankfully, for him and for us, that has turned out to be true.
ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ isn’t booming, but we are at least adding jobs at a moderate rate. In the ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ metro area, annual job growth from 2016 through 2017 was 1.5 percent, the revised numbers show, reflecting an addition of about 5,400 jobs.
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Previously, the annual numbers showed an increase of just 0.1 percent, or 200 jobs.
“We’re continuing to grow at a modest pace,†said Hammond, of the University of ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Eller College of Management.
The recent announced closure of the Rockwell Collins (formerly B/E Aerospace) manufacturing plant will hurt, he acknowledged. The plant, where workers built luxury aircraft interiors, employed more than 400 people.
“It’s significant,†Hammond said. “But I think the growth we see in 2018 will be in the neighborhood of what we saw in 2017.â€
ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ injunction denied
The ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ County Attorney’s Office has lost a key battle in its fight against the publication of a grand-jury transcript.
I reported back in December that authorities were investigating Bisbee gadfly David Morgan for publishing the transcript from the indictment of Roger Wilson for first-degree murder. They requested a preliminary injunction, asking that Morgan be forced to remove the transcript from the internet.
Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Thomas Fink held a hearing March 2 and found in favor of Morgan.
“Where an individual who is a member of the press in the internet age legally obtains documents through no violation of the law and disseminates them — whether it’s critical or not of what happened — that’s at the core of First Amendment speech,†Fink said.
Chomsky and AMLO
ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥an Noam Chomsky, the renowned linguist and leftist, traveled to Hermosillo, Sonora, this week to deliver a presentation called “Gangster Capitalism.†He ended up meeting Thursday with leading Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who also was in town.
“I don’t present myself as any specialist on Mexican politics,†Chomsky, a UA professor, said after the meeting. “My understanding is that Lopez Obrador is doing quite well at the polls and might win the election unless measures aren’t taken to undermine the election as has happened in the past in Mexico. ... To the extent I’m familiar with his policies, they seem pretty reasonable to me.â€
