33% of all U.S. job losses happened in California, according to new figures

In a recent video, entrepreneur and California commentator Ramin Ekhtiar says the latest jobs numbers were not just weak. In his view, they were a flashing warning sign, especially for one state that keeps showing up on the wrong side of the ledger.

In the video, Ekhtiar says the U.S. economy lost 92,000 jobs in February even though economists had expected a gain of roughly 50,000. He frames that as a 151,000-job swing in the wrong direction, and he argues that the most important part of the report was not simply that jobs were lost, but that California absorbed such an outsized share of the damage.

According to Ekhtiar, California has about 12% of the nation’s population, yet it accounted for roughly a third of all job losses in that report. That is the number he keeps coming back to, and it is easy to see why. Even if some of the monthly decline proves temporary, a state that large taking that much of the national hit is going to raise eyebrows.

He does not treat it as a one-off statistical quirk. He treats it as a symptom of a deeper pattern that has been building for years.

The Numbers That Caught His Attention

Ekhtiar says this was the third negative jobs print in the last five months, and he cites a financial adviser speaking on local KTVU who said the country had now seen five straight reductions in the workforce for the first time since 2010. That comparison matters because 2010 still sat in the long shadow of the Great Recession, and invoking it immediately changes the tone of the conversation from “soft patch” to something more serious.

He also points to comments from the U.S. labor secretary on Fox Business, who specifically called out California and said the state saw a strike-related loss of more than 30,000 jobs, adding that officials hoped those numbers would tick back up the following month.

That is where Ekhtiar starts to separate the headline explanation from the broader story he believes is being missed. Yes, he acknowledges the strike explanation, but he argues the strike itself was more of a symptom than the actual disease. In other words, even if some of those positions return, he does not think that erases the structural problems that made California especially vulnerable in the first place.

That is a fair distinction to make. A strike can distort a monthly report, but a state does not repeatedly end up in an expensive, slow-growth, business-hostile conversation by accident. When commentators start talking about tax burdens, regulatory friction, energy costs, and relocation risk all at once, they are usually talking about problems that have been accumulating for a long time.

Why He Thinks California Is So Exposed

Ekhtiar’s argument is blunt. He says California has created a climate where businesses run the math, find better options elsewhere, and either hire less, automate more, or leave altogether.

In the video, he ties that directly to a broader economic loop. Step one, he says, companies cut jobs in California or move operations out. Step two, job losses reduce tax revenue. Step three, cities facing revenue pressure start cutting services. Step four, governments raise taxes or fees on the people still there, which pushes out more businesses and residents and starts the cycle all over again.

That is the kind of argument that can sound dramatic when stated quickly, but the underlying concern is not hard to understand. California cities and counties depend heavily on economically active residents, employers, and property owners. When hiring slows in higher-paying industries, the fiscal stress does not stay in one corner of the economy. It starts showing up in municipal budgets, housing markets, local services, and household decisions.

Ekhtiar uses San Francisco as the clearest example. He says the city is facing an $877 million budget deficit and notes reports that at least 500 city jobs may be cut, with officials also pursuing new revenue from property owners through a parcel-tax style charge.

His point is that the strain is now hitting both sides of the equation at once. Jobs are under pressure, and the public sector response is beginning to lean on taxpayers who are already stretched.

The AI Layer Makes It More Complicated

What makes Ekhtiar’s warning more interesting is that he does not blame everything on traditional California policy fights. He spends a large part of the video arguing that artificial intelligence is about to intensify the pain, especially in white-collar sectors that once looked safer than factory work or retail.

He highlights Jack Dorsey’s company Block, saying it cut roughly 4,000 jobs and that investors rewarded the move by pushing the stock higher. For Ekhtiar, that was not just a layoff story. It was a message from the market that leaner companies using more automation may now be seen as better companies.

He quotes Dorsey describing “a new way of working” enabled by intelligence tools and flatter teams, and he interprets that as a corporate confession that fewer employees can now do work that once required many more people.

He also cites a KTVU financial adviser who said the AI movement is clearly contributing to job cuts, along with a Fox Business analyst who argued that by 2030 some back-office fields like finance and HR may need only a fraction of today’s staffing levels.

There is some real weight to that argument. California has long depended on exactly the kinds of office-heavy, professional, tech-adjacent jobs that are most exposed to workflow automation. If the next round of labor disruption is not just about factories or warehouses but about analysts, coordinators, recruiters, and middle managers, then California could indeed feel it earlier and harder than some other states.

That does not mean every AI claim deserves panic. It does mean Ekhtiar is probably right that too many people still talk about automation like it is a future event instead of a current management strategy.

Why He Says Homeowners Should Be Paying Attention

Ekhtiar’s sharpest turn comes when he moves from jobs to housing. As a mortgage professional, he says he has watched this cycle before, and he argues that job losses in California do not stay isolated for long. They eventually work their way into household balance sheets and property values.

He says the danger begins quietly. One neighbor gets laid off, then another, then someone in your own office gets cut, and before long the household that thought it was secure is suddenly trying to cover a California mortgage without stable income. In that environment, he warns, losing a job can quickly become a housing crisis rather than just an employment setback.

He argues that homeowners often assume they can simply sell if trouble hits, but he says that calculation becomes less reliable when rates are high, buyers are cautious, and inventory starts creeping up. Equity may look solid on paper, yet a distressed timeline can still leave a household damaged before a sale closes.

That part of his commentary is probably the strongest because it is less ideological and more practical. Job markets and housing markets are deeply linked, and California’s cost structure makes that link especially unforgiving. In a cheaper state, a short disruption may be painful but survivable. In California, where mortgage payments, insurance, taxes, and daily costs are all elevated, the margin for error is much thinner.

A Warning, Not Just A Rant

Ekhtiar ends by arguing that the layoffs being reported now may not be the peak, but the beginning of a longer trend. He believes CEOs are learning they can run leaner companies, Wall Street is rewarding them for it, and California is especially poorly positioned to absorb that shift because it already carries high operating costs, heavy taxes, and fragile public finances in several major cities.

That is, of course, a pointed interpretation, and some of his language is clearly meant to alarm. But beneath the commentary is a serious question that is worth asking whether one agrees with his politics or not: what happens when a state with high living costs, high business costs, and an increasingly AI-sensitive white-collar economy runs into a sustained hiring slowdown?

The answer may not be as apocalyptic as he suggests, and some of the February losses may prove temporary, especially if strike-related numbers reverse. Still, the imbalance he highlights is hard to ignore. When one state is only about one-eighth of the country by population but appears responsible for roughly one-third of the monthly job losses, that is not the kind of figure public officials can brush aside with slogans.

Ekhtiar’s broader message is that Californians should stop assuming these are isolated headlines and start seeing them as connected pieces of the same economic picture. On that point, at least, he is probably right. 

Jobs, budgets, AI, taxes, housing, and migration do not operate in separate boxes anymore. In a state as expensive and exposed as California, they now move together, and when they start moving the wrong way at the same time, people notice fast.