The Long Beach Accelerator is hosting a virtual Lunch and Learn on May 31, 2022 from 12:00 PM to 1:30 PM Pacific Time. Long Beach Accelerator is a nascent tech accelerator that is a public-private partnership between the city of Long Beach, Sunstone Management, and California State University of Long Beach (CSULB). The organization strives to provide resources and training to entrepreneurs and students that want to build a business in Long Beach. The event will feature a Playbook for Building Successful Remote Startup Team. The speaker will be Thomas Breideband, a PhD researcher who concentrate on computer-supported cooperative work and social computing which identifies factors “the lead to team effectiveness and help to better understand how teams can succeed in the digital workspaces of the future”.

On March 28, 2022, there was an appeal to approve a Local Coastal Development Permit and Standard Variances for a new residential duplex project located at 5925 East Seaside Walk. The project will involve the demolition and replacement of an existing duplex. The new project will have a four-car garage and there will be no net loss. The variances request the following:

1. A request to allow a 4ft garage setback, where 20ft is required

2. A request to allow two tandem parking spaces for a total of four parking spaces

Although the project is requesting approval of variances, it is located in the Coastal Zone and is appealable to the Coastal Commission.

The Long Beach City Council Officials approved an agreement with California’s For All Youth Workforce Development Program to award them with $6,300,000. This program will fund the Long Beach Youth Climate Corps, which is a paid work experience program that is from December 6, 2021 to June 30, 2024. The funding will come from the California State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds. The program itself will “increase youth employment, develop youth interest and experience toward careers in public service, and strengthen capacity to address areas of education, climate change, and food security”. The program prioritizes 388 youth that are part of the Long Beach communities and will connect them with “workplace mentors, social capital building opportunities, and bolster their level of civic engagement and understanding through education and hand-on experiences”. The work experience will “range from entry-level to advanced and provide 160 to 500 hours of hands-on experience”. The program will be monitored and measured to understand the success rate of the program and how it can be improved upon. Some of the metrics they use to measure is the number of youth participating in the program, employed in each focus area, enrolled and completed job trainings or programs, and the average amount of hours the youth participants worked. In addition, the program will take in testimonies from the youth. 

According to the California Employment Development Department, after nine consecutive months of economic decline the city of Long Beach has finally reached unemployment at pre-pandemic levels to 4.8%. The County of Los Angeles has also seen an improved turnout with the unemployment also at pre-pandemic level at 4.7%. Unemployment in the state of California has seen an improvement with at unemployment rate of 3.8%, a 0.4% decrease from March’s 4.2%. Throughout the state the occupation that is seeing the most employment growth are ironically the ones that were hit the hardest by the pandemic, the leisure and hospitality sector. Other employment sectors that have seen the most growth is “professional, scientific and technical services, government, retail, transportation, warehousing and utilities, administrative support, manufacturing and information”. Although this shows a positive trend, the city of Long Beach recently saw a dip in employed residents from 223,100 to 221,500.  

For more information, please contact Mary Frances Torres, SR/WA, Acting Real Estate Development Bureau Manager, Economic Development Department, at mary.torres@longbeach.gov.