In the Fresno area, one in three jobs is agriculture related.  This is to say that Fresno, and the surrounding farmlands are major indicators of the California job market in general.  The transportation and government industry sectors make up the next largest employment sectors in the area, but pale in comparison to the hundreds of thousands of agriculture and agriculture-related jobs.

California’s unemployment rate is slightly higher than the national average.  The agricultural sector has quite a bit of insulation from the economic downturn due to the fact that food and food products are always n demand.  This is not to say that jobs in the Fresno area have grown, but at least they have not felt the same pressure as other sectors throughout California and the rest of the country.  Fresno itself boasts a fairly high unemployment rate, but this can be attributed to the seasonal nature of much of the agricultural jobs and other socio economic factors.

When the recession ends and the economy begins to thaw out, Fresno will likely be one of the last US cities on the list to see any real job growth and benefits relative to the unemployment numbers it currently has.  This is partly due to the already high unemployment figures for the area but also partially due to the fact that non agriculture jobs in the education and government sectors only make up about ten to twenty percent of the entire job market in the Fresno area.  So even if there is a huge increase in these sectors, they still will have a very long ways to catch up to the economic powerhouse that is the agriculture sector around Fresno.

Fresno has also been hit hard by the state of California’s budget shortfall.  Many people have been issued IOU’s by the state of California, especially government workers and those in the education field.  This adds further weight to the argument that when the recovery begins in earnest, and California can regain its fiscal composure, the non-farm jobs will still have a huge gap to fill if they are to compete with other farm-related employment sectors.

One of the positive sides to the Fresno area are the myriad tax credits that the state of California provides to small businesses and individuals to help encourage economic growth at the roots of society.  Fresno has one of the state’s largest “Enterprise Zones” where state-funded programs and tax credits help to offset the rising costs of procuring small business infrastructure and capital.  There are many small business loan programs to help entrepreneurs strike out in the Fresno area and help to enrich the local economy.  Some of these loan programs were cut from the state budget in recent years and others are still functioning to help those in need.

Sadly, like the rest of California, Fresno has found itself neck deep in the real estate crisis.  Once the housing bubble burst, cities like Fresno and San Francisco were hit extremely hard by falling housing prices and rising foreclosures.  It will likely take many decades for these cities to fully recover to pre-2007 employment and economic figures.