Facebook - the hottest company du jour - has 1,300 employees.
It is highly doubtful that Facebook or any social media for that matter will ever become a real big job engine. Such companies, though, are very effective at generating lots of profit for avery few people.
Hewlett-Packard is an old school high tech company when compared to Facebook. The firm has 68,000 employees in the United States. That number will soon shrink as HP restructures its operations.
Indy Electronics, which once had 700 employees in Manteca, has zero today.
NUMNI, which once directly or indirectly provided employment for an estimated 200 Manteca residents, no longer is manufacturing vehicles.
What does this all mean for Manteca which just slipped below the 14 percent unemployment mark?
High tech jobs per se aren’t the answer to getting people back to work and providing long-term stable and dependable jobs. Heavy industry that competes with overseas manufacturers and states that are much more friendly to such operations aren’t likely to flock to California.
The real long-term solution lies in a three-fold approach - distribution for the markets of the Bay Area and Sacramento, regional type operations for the San Jose-San Francisco-Sacramento triangle that need central locations plus lower costs and the oldest employment sector of them all, agriculture.
Not only is Manteca in arguably the world’s most fertile and productive farming region but it also has an incredible transportation hub that includes the West Coast’s prime north-south freeway, direct access to the Bay Area, two railroad intermodal operations, a nearby seaport, and an airport capable of handling jet cargo.
The world looks at America’s food supply chain as the safest, most productive, and highest quality. It explains how California pistachios now dominate the world market when few orchards existed just 20 years ago. Virtually anything that is grown elsewhere can be grown better, more often, and in bigger quality here.
There is a growing demand worldwide for food and not simply basic grains. The appetite is for fruits, nuts, vegetables, and dairy products which happen to be the backbone of what makes agriculture California’s No. 1 industry.
One of the biggest myths is that all agricultural jobs are menial and low paying. There are those that are but there are also processing jobs, transportation jobs, support-type jobs requiring mechanical and engineering knowledge among others.
Why should any such jobs be allowed to go to regions that don’t produce the food?
As an example, there are food packaging firms in Los Angeles because the infrastructure supports such operations and it is part of a major market with the ability to use a repertoire of transit options to reach other markets.
High tech jobs are great but let’s be honest. There is no way you are going to compete for the R&D type of high tech ventures with the Silicon Valley and San Francisco. It has everything to do with synergy and the lifestyle the Bay Area offers.
As far as the manufacturing end, Manteca lost that war longtime ago. Indy Electronics morphed into a number of different ventures with each and every one of them sending “high paying” $7 an hour jobs that once employed upwards of 700 people in the Manteca Industrial Park first to Mexico and then to Asia.
Computers and such may rely on bytes but they aren’t edible.
People have to eat. And when people improve their lifestyle they want better food.
The proposal to reopen the cheese factory on North Airport Way using cutting edge technology to address water and odor issues could provide 140 good paying jobs.
And those jobs would be providing processed food products for a growing and hungry Asian market.
It’s not glamorous and people working won’t get rich. But they would have good, solid dependable jobs to allow them to build a good life.
This column is the opinion of managing editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinion of The Bulletin or Morris Newspaper Corp. of CA. He can be contacted at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com or 209-249-3519.
