单选题
Nationally, the unemployment rate sits at 9.5 percent. But in the El Centro metropolitan area, it"s an incredible 27.6 percent. And as workers across the country struggle to navigate the lifeless labor market, El Centro has emerged as a case study about just how fragile the economic recovery can be. In recent years, California"s multibillion-dollar budget shortfall and its painful cutbacks have gotten plenty of attention. But even by California standards, El Centro"s situation is unusually dire. Since the recession hit, the area"s housing market has fallen apart, its wages have remained anemic, and its unemployment rate has soared.
In El Centro, the position of mayor rotates between the members of the city council. Viegas-Walker has sat on the council for 13 years and is currently serving a third term as mayor. He attributes the city"s sky-high unemployment rate to its agricultural economy. Laborers in El Centro grow and harvest broccoli, lettuce, wheat, and just about everything in between. All told, agriculture in the area is a billion-dollar-a-year industry. But agricultural work is often temporary by nature, and seasonal job losses take a toll on the city"s overall unemployment rate. Meanwhile, competition from workers from nearby Mexico makes agricultural jobs harder to come by.
In El Centro, unemployment has always been a concern. Notably, in the past decade, the area"s jobless rate has never dropped below 12 percent. But when the economy soured during the recession, El Centro"s unemployment rate surged, rising from 15.3 percent at the beginning of 2007 to 31.3 percent by the middle of last year as the housing market collapsed.
"We had a large construction boom going on," says Sam Couchman, director of workforce development and veteran services. "So those construction workers being unemployed when the construction boom ended and everything kind of came to a standstill—that"s why you continue to have a high unemployment rate. They had overbuilt; they weren"t selling the homes that they had, so why would they build more?"
But it"s not just housing. The retail and manufacturing sectors also got squeezed, applying further pressure to an already struggling economy. Currently, the government is one of the few reliable employers left. Another potential bright spot is the hope that El Centro will be able to expand its renewable-energy industry. Already, El Centro residents are awaiting the planned arrival of the company Tessera Solar. If all goes as planned, Tessera could be a major employer for El Centro residents.
Cecilia Garcia, an adult development specialist at Imperial Valley College, says El Centro workers have already begun accepting renewable-energy internships with Tessera in Arizona in hopes of positioning themselves for eventual employment at the new location. "When the company comes, they"re going to be prepared so they can be hired," she says.
The way Couchman sees it, El Centro is currently in the middle of a waiting game—just like much of the rest of the country. "We see a little bit of recovery on the horizon," he says. "It"s happening very slowly, but as the country recovers, we will recover."
单选题
The reason why the author mentions California is that ______