Esteban Cortez / The Collegian
With unemployment rates plaguing the country from coast to coast, Fresno is feeling nearly the worst effects.
Fresno’s unemployment rate is at a staggering 15.7 percent. Fresno State students who will soon look for jobs may be in trouble if they plan on staying in the Central Valley upon graduation.
Dr. Sean Alley, an economics professor at Fresno State, focuses primarily on environmental economics and thinks a major contributing factor to the lack of jobs is the Valley being an undesirable place to live.
“Our air here is terrible and I think that causes people who can pick where they live to not live here,” Alley said. “And that causes companies to certainly choose to build their headquarters somewhere else so they’re not bringing their employees into the place with the worse air in the country.”
Alley says that another problem is Fresno produces people with talent, but can’t retain them in order to make a difference in the Valley’s economy.
“A lot of talent that we do produce and educate here at Fresno State leaves the Valley for work and doesn’t come back,” said Alley.
And while Fresno and its surrounding area is just shy of a million people in population, Alley says that due to high dropout rates, low graduation rates and low college enrollment, Fresno doesn’t produce an attractive work force.
“We’re exporting more smart people than were importing,” Alley said. “I think that over the course of generations it adds up until you get the problem, like the job creators going somewhere else.”
For students, a conflict is not having some resources in the Valley that other metropolitan areas have. Although political science major Pazong Vang wants to stay in Fresno, she plans to go elsewhere for law school ”” sending her away from the area she grew up in.
“I plan on coming back anyways because I feel like Fresno is my hometown and I love it here,” Vang said. “ But I want to go to law school, and I don’t think San Joaquin would be the place for me.”
Other students, such as accounting major William Worthley, will not stay in Fresno and will look for jobs outside of the Valley.
“I just feel like there’s more to do in cities up north, as opposed to Fresno,” Worthly said.
Other places in the Valley, such as Modesto, Stockton, Visalia and Bakersfield, also made U.S. News list for the ten worse cities for finding a job.
At the beginning of each month, the Department of Labor releases the Regional and State Employment and Unemployment Summary that shows where ratings stand.
“They’re looking at two things: high unemployment, and they’re looking at places where there is high unemployment, and it’s either not getting better or getting worse,” said Alley. “The unemployment rate nationally has gone down over the last couple of years, and according to those numbers they were using in Fresno, it has gotten worse.”
Given the Central Valley’s numerous struggles, both socially and economically, Alley said there really is no easy answer.
“There are a whole host of economic problems and it’s hard to know what to fix first,” said Alley.
