Download the 2010 OC’s LARGEST EMPLOYERSList (pdf)
The University of California, Irvine, grabbed the county’s largest employer title from Walt Disney Co., though the biggest employers here did little to help the county’s fledgling jobs rebound in the past year.
The 50 largest private and university employers here saw a 1.6% decline in local workers in the past 12 months, according to this week’s Business Journal list.
The employers shed 3,442 local employees for a total of 208,463.
The decline bucked a trend of rebounding employment here with overall jobs in the county up 1% in October from a year earlier, according to the state Employment Development Department.
A spinoff and business sale contributed to job losses for the 50 companies, nonprofits and universities on the list.
No. 14 Fountain Valley-based hospital operator MemorialCare Health System, which moved down four spots from last year, sold off Anaheim Memorial Medical Center in 2009, resulting in a 23% drop to 4,270 local employees.
No. 44 Santa Ana-based First American Financial Corp., which moved down 11 spots, saw a 30% drop in employment to 1,714 local workers after spinning off Santa Ana’s CoreLogic Inc. in June.
Without those changes—which didn’t result in actual job losses—the largest employers here were down 0.7% in the past year.
In all, seven companies on the list added employees. Thirteen lost workers. Three were flat. The list, one of the more difficult to produce, includes 27 Business Journal estimates.
The list is made up of corporations and nonprofits and excludes government employers except for universities. UC Irvine and California State University, Fullerton, are included in a bid to reflect their impact on the economy here.
UCI
UCI tops the list for the first time this year with 20,650 local workers. The employment figure is a Business Journal estimate based on input from UCI. It includes part-time students and faculty and workers at UC Irvine Douglas Hospital in Orange.
The estimate takes into account a hiring freeze at UCI as well as hiring at the hospital and new law school, which weren’t subject to the freeze.
No. 2 Burbank-based Walt Disney Co., which had long topped the list, came in at an estimated 20,000 local workers. Disney’s figure is a 12-month average of employment at the company’s two Anaheim theme parks, three hotels and shopping center. Disney sees a surge of summer jobs and lower employment during other times in the year.
We estimated Disney’s employment to be up by about 200 jobs from last year with improved consumer spending and an uptick in tourism.
Overall, the county’s leisure and hospitality sector added 7,700 jobs in the 12 months through October, according to the Employment Development Department.
No. 3 Orange-based hospital operator St. Joseph Health System added 1,036 jobs, a 9.5% gain to 11,965 employees.
St. Joseph’s gain was the largest on the list by actual number of jobs added.
About 300 of those jobs were added in St. Joseph’s $36.5 million 2009 acquisition of the former South Coast Medical Center, now known as Mission Hospital Laguna Beach.
St. Joseph also hired about 700 technology workers who had done work for the hospital operator as contractors.
“All of our IT personnel were outsourced prior to the last year,” said Kevin Andrus, vice president of corporate communications for St. Joseph. “We just hired them on as employees.”
Other healthcare providers also saw growth.
No. 8 Oakland-based Kaiser Permanente moved up one spot from last year after adding 206 people, a 3.7% gain, for a total of 5,804 local employees.
No. 10 Newport Beach-based Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian added 866 people for a total of 5,107 workers in Newport Beach and Irvine.
Hoag recently opened Hoag Hospital Irvine after spending $85 million to renovate what once was Irvine Regional Hospital and Medical Center. The Irvine hospital specializes in orthopedics with about half of its 154 beds designed for orthopedic patients. The hospital also kept its emergency room.
No. 33 Orange-based Children’s Hospital of Orange County moved up one notch from last year after increasing employment by 1% to 2,436 people.
Retailers were a mixed bag.
No. 9 Minneapolis-based Target Corp., the largest retailer on the list, cut its local employment by 14% to 5,325 people.
Target closed 15 garden centers at local stores in September, among other cuts.
No. 17 Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc. was estimated at 3,800 employees, down by 200 from a year earlier, after closing a Sam’s Club in Irvine earlier this year.
No. 26 Seattle-based Nordstom Inc., which moved up one spot from a year ago, was estimated to have added 150 employees. In April, Nordstrom opened a 138,000-square-foot store at Fashion Island, its sixth in the county.
Finance
Financial companies also had their ups and downs.
No. 5 Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America Corp., the largest bank on the list, was flat with 6,500 local employees.
No. 12 San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co. moved up three spots from last year after adding 167 people, a 4% rise, for a total of 4,622.
No. 34 New York-based JPMorgan Chase & Co. added 337 people for a total of 2,337 workers in the county.
The company’s Chase banking arm plans to open eight local branches by the end of the year. It also has brought on more bankers to handle monthly transactions and is building up its business banking division.
No. 40 Los Angeles-based Capital Group Cos. lost 85 workers for a total of 1,922 people at its Irvine offices.
No. 41 Newport Beach-based Pacific Mutual Holding Co. lost 45 people, a 2.3% drop, for a total of 1,905.
The technology and medical device industries, two key sectors here, showed job gains overall.
No. 35 Irvine-based Broadcom Corp. moved up five spots from last year after adding 245 workers, a 12.2% rise, for a total of 2,250 local employees.
No. 36 Irvine-based Allergan Inc. saw a 10% jump to 2,240 employees.
No. 37 Irvine-based Edwards Lifesciences Corp. added 109 workers, a 5.2% increase, for a total of 2,200.
