| Vol. 17 No. 21 | Final Edition | |
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February 9, 2001
The Future Is Now!
Clovis e-Commerce Outlook Report
By Howard Hobbs Ph.D. President, Valley Press Media NetworkCLOVIS -- New knowledge-based industries, including computer technologies, telecommunications, biotechnology; and professional services, have sparked an expansive Central California economic miracle in the making, e-commerce, trade and construction are surging.
Projected enrollment growth is at tidal-wave proportions. If 1996 college-participation rates among Californians continue, it is projected that total enrollments in 2005 will be 2,142,000, or 98,000 (4.8 percent) above the peak enrollments experienced in 1991.
Eight out of every ten new jobs created in California today are in information related industries. Sales data analysis by the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy reports California's strong performance in high-tech production has set up a 75 percent increase in computer shipments, an 80% gain in communication equipment shipments, and a 57 percent increase in sales of electronic components.
With this combination of new and traditional industry growth, California is now out pacing the national average in job creation, new business incorporation, and exports.
Technology jobs, revenues, exports, and venture capital have all surged to record levels in California, while other sectors such as entertainment and tourism have demonstrated strong growth and created tens of thousands of new jobs. These trends are expected to continue throughout the coming decade and beyond. As we enter the 21st Century, Central California's economy possesses new characteristics that point to a promising future with substantial opportunities.
Significant elements include a transition from traditional goods-producing industries to information-based products, a shift from large defense oriented companies to smaller, commercial oriented firms with an emphasis on new technologies, a heightened awareness of world markets, an increase in international trade and export industries, and the emergence of an ethnically diverse state with growing populations from Latin America, East Asia, and the Middle East.
As the Central Valley' UC Campus approaches final completion in Merced, it becomes an excellent new economy model for and closely linked to a regional economy that will be a model 21st Century knowledge and information-based economy.
The region's high productivity and technological innovation have made it the world's most competitive economy and position the region for continued growth.
Closely tied to this investment in training, intensive specialization, and innovative management in corporate organizations, the new business model will serve as an incubator for rates of high productivity and value added per worker, which result in high wages for the Central Valley workforce.
The ethnic diversity of the Central Valley workforce is a characteristic representative of a 21st Century economy for the greater Clovis region, with an increased interest in world markets.
A key factor in attracting this highly valued, diverse workforce to the greater Clovis region is the quality of life. While most Americans place a high value on quality of life, this is particularly true among knowledge workers in California. According to occupational research reports on quality-of-life indicators.
The proposed Clovis General Plan focussing on the region's major research university ended up going to Merced. However, the UC Merced high-tech and high value-added regional influence will bring to the Central Valley and especially to Clovis, a truly impressive derivative information effect. That information based economy provides several essential elements that contribute to the further expansion of the greater Clovis region.
Proximity to the major research university is at the core of the Clovis miracle, from which flow knowledge, education, innovation, research, and patents. The University of California campus will augment the supply of a highly trained workforce with hands-on experience and leadership in scientific and engineering research.
University of California's contributions to the knowledge and information-based economy are monumental. Last year, the University of California Annual Financial Report stated that patented inventions by UC generate approximately $63 million in royalties annually. More than any other university in the world, UC's Biotechnology Program reports that one in three U.S. biotech companies is located within 35 miles of the campus, six of the ten best-selling biotech drugs stem from UC research, and one in five California biotech companies was founded by UC researchers. The clustering of biotech firms around UC campuses is indicative of the attraction businesses and capital have to higher education.
The greater Clovis region needs high quality legal services that the, highly rated UC law and business schools offer. These services complement high-tech and biotech activities, and provide the high-quality business services essential to a 21st Century economy.
The San Joaquin Valley has maintained its strength as an agricultural-based economy while experiencing the transition to the new economy. The backbone of this economy continues to be in agriculture and related industries, such as food-processing and transportation. Global and national trends are now impacting the San Joaquin Valley, as urban growth pressures spill over into this largely rural landscape of the greater Clovis region.
Dramatic large scale increases in the region;s population in recent times has largely been absorbed in the Clovis community, with the region's population ranking among the ten highest states in the nation in population growth between 1980 and 1990.
The San Joaquin Valley is now California's third largest region with more than 4 million residents. The region is projected to be California's fastest growing area over the next decade, and the California Department of Finance projects its population to double by 2020 and triple by 2040.
In short the greater Clovis region is projected to grow faster than both the state and the nation, with foreign immigration and instate migration, particularly from the Los Angeles Basin, expected to be key sources of this growth.
With these increases in population, demographic and economic changes are certain. Clovis will mirror and perhaps even magnify California's demographic changes as the population grows more ethnically diverse.
The tremendous population growth experienced in the San Joaquin Valley has also demonstrated the need for economic development and employment opportunities in the region. Average unemployment rates in Clovis have been consistently well above those for the state.
The economic structure of the greater Clovis area is tied to the expansion of commercial uses of information technology, digital news and e-book publishing, and less to agriculture, manufacturing, services, government, or the building industry. It has attracted a world-class infrastructure and services, with knowledgeable public officials and an atmosphere that fosters innovation in the new economy.
There are more than 525,000 people living in the greater Clovis area. The population of the trade area is 1.3 million. The average age is 27 years old.
The greater Clovis share of total wage and salary jobs is almost four times greater than in the state as a whole, as leading growth industries in electronics, computer integrated systems, digital publishing, and computer related occupations in systems analyses programming, software engineering, data communications, and networks with 100 or more employees build operations in and around the "business friendly" Clovis, California region of the Great Central San Joaquin Valley.
Clovis values its vibrant business community and recognizes the contribution that businesses, from small retailers to billion-dollar corporations, make its character and economic vitality. The City of Clovis offers high quality services. It boasts nationally acclaimed proximity to a critical core of high-tech businesses and services. It is nationally recognized as a leader in cutting-edge technology and home to Web Portal Corporation microsystems, The Clovis Free Press, the Clovis Schools, an excellent public school system. It has proximity to the Yosemite International airport, and excellent mean household income and other demographics for retailers.
At present, manufacturing's share of total wage and salary jobs in the Central San Joaquin Valley is generally about two-thirds its share in the state. The higher job share for the state reflects the concentration of manufacturing in California's coastal urban areas. That was a development accelerated greatly during and after WWII.
The balance is now shifting to the greater Clovis region. The prime feature of the Clovis greater area's economic transformation has been the growth of services jobs. Services jobs tend to predominate in urbanized areas because of greater intensity of business activity as well as higher population density.
For example, major medical facilities (health services) tend to be concentrated in major metropolitan areas. This is also true for business services such as computer services and temporary help agencies.
Economies of scale are also one of the factors in this concentration of services jobs in urban areas. For example, agencies that provide contract computer programmers are more viable in larger markets with bigger customer bases and substantial skilled labor pools.
Currently, local City, County, special districts, and federal government's share of total wage and salary jobs has been considerably higher in the the greater Clovis area than for the state as a whole. This has been explained by government officials as a "stabilizing force" in the region.
The long-term impact of the overriding presence of government payrolls, and the self-perpetuating actions of local government officials had once stifled the growth of innovation and free enterprise in the greater Clovis area economy.
However, over the last decade, the relationship of government and private sector entrepreneurs in California has continued to evolve as private enterprise increasingly focused on the productivity innovations and as local government increasingly became dependent upon private sector high-tech characterized by high output-per-employee hour worked.
The future is now. The place is here.
[Editor's Note: Economic, university enrollment projections & demographic data presented in this report were researched by economists from Valley Press Media Network in Clovis & the State of Calif. Projections are derived from the Clovis Regional Economic-Demographic Forecasting & Policy Analyses,of the Clovis Free Press, and the Legislative Analyst's Report, of the Great Valley Center in Modesto, Calif. Secondary sources relied upon were, The Economic Report of the Governor 1989-2000, and the Fresno County Fact Book 1989-2000, and the City of Clovis General Plan and the City of Clovis Business Retention, Expansion, And Attraction Program Report, and the City of Clovis Target Industry Study, Jan. 1998 published by the City of Clovis Community & Economic Development Dept.,and the 1999 Merced Foothill Region Environment and Land Use (GIS) Study of the UC Center for Environmental Design Research.]
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