Costly new Tesla jobs

The state Employment Development Department just released their latest jobs numbers, and guess what? They’re still way bad. Despite 14,200 new nonfarm payroll jobs in April, the state’s unemployment rate remains an abysmal 12.6 percent (the national unemployment rate stands at 9.9 percent).

“The number of people unemployed in California [in April] was 2,300,000 — down by 7,000 over the month, but up by 290,000 compared with April of last year,” says this EDD press release on the new jobs figures.

Leave it to Governor Arnold “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs!” Schwarzenegger to spin this travesty to his advantage. “While I am encouraged that April marked the fourth consecutive month California has added jobs, we have a long way to go for employment to recover from this great recession,” he said in this press release, sent out today. “Government needs to encourage private sector hiring, which will increase revenues and economic output, not discourage that hiring by increasing burdens on employers, which would stall our economic recovery.”

And this is already being done! says Arnold. “For proof, we need look no further than the announcement Tesla Motors made yesterday,” he added. “[N]ow Tesla will ramp up its electric vehicle production at the Fremont NUMMI facility, action that could create more than 1,000 jobs in California.”

Yeah, “could.” This is especially depressing when you think that Toyota’s closing of the NUMMI facility a few months ago put 4,600 people out of work. What’s more, Tesla received $465 million in U.S. government -backed loans. Assuming Tesla’s new plant actually creates 1,000 new jobs, that comes to $465,000 in federal subsidies per new employee.

This is seriously how Arnold intends to bring about economic recovery?

-Anthony Pignataro