The California Employment Development Department released some interesting statistics for Humboldt County this past week. The below figures represent statistics for May of 2008.

So, what do these numbers tell us? Government jobs represent about 30% of the total workforce in Humboldt County. Unfortunately, the survey does not take into account those employed by non-profits and other entities that receive part or most of their funding from various government agencies and tax breaks from the Internal Revenue Service.

If you toss-in the number of unemployed, those receiving some type of government benefits, those working for non-profits, etc. the number is probably well over 50%. Since the population of Humboldt County is around 110,000, this would mean that 20% of the population (and the taxes they pay) are supporting the other 80% of the population.

Obviously, that number does not include children, who are by definition, dependents. Still, this number shows the overwhelming tax burden placed upon those employed by private businesses. If you take into account that those on the very low end of employment pay scales are probably exempt from many taxes, you will find the tax burden upon the middle class of Humboldt County is getting beyond the breaking point.

The good news? About the only good news the EDD had to report this month is that Humboldt County has about the same unemployment rate as the rest of the state. On the flipside though, the average job in Humboldt County probably pays substantially less than the average job in other parts of the state. A job that pays perhaps $12 an hour in Eureka might pay $25 an hour in San Diego. Although it may be more expensive to rent or buy a home in San Diego (just an example), mortgage rates here are the same, as are tax percentages, government fees and permits and other things that have to be accounted into everyone’s cost of living.

All in all, Humboldt County is becoming a very expensive place to live. With a sharp decline in new homes being built, the cost of living is not likely to drop anytime soon, nor are any of the jobs Humboldt has lost in past decade likely to come back. This paints a fairly bleak outlook for those living here, but things could always turn around.

This is more of an editorial comment than anything else, but after doing research on dozens of websites in order to compile our listings, I have come to a conclusion about their quality (or lack thereof).

It seems that the WORST websites, in relation to layout and design, are almost always ones that belong to some government agency. The EDD’s in particular is just horrible from a user standpoint. It takes forever to navigate through the various categories and is just plain user-unfriendly. I am pretty sure that this has to do with the fact that most of these sites are built by independent contractors who submit the lowest bid for the project. The companies and individuals with the least experience and lowest quality are generally the winning bidders for projects, and it shows.

The second worst category of websites are generally those designed by large corporations for internal use or are merely an extension of some large website’s existing content. In these cases, a lot of the work is done by existing IT employees. These people may be great in terms of writing scripts and keeping a network running, but they have no clue as to how to make a website attractive and usable for the average person. Some are just plain irritating to dig through.

The BEST designed job hunting websites I have come across are ones built by start-ups and individuals who are really driven by creative design and usefulness. Unlike “low-bidders”, these people will usually spend as long as it takes to finish a project to their own, personal satisfaction. Generally, they set much higher standards for themselves than anyone else would expect of them. I have always been more of a “tech” person than an “art” person myself, so I generally stick to pre-fab templates for my own websites. I’m not very creative. A well-designed template produces a much better website experience than one written from scratch by a bunch of code-oriented developers with no sense of style though. Keeping code simple and focusing on “useability” is they key. You will find this in the most useful websites we list here, like Yahoo! HotJobs, Monster.Com or even the boringly-simple Eureka Reporter. If you are planning a job hunting site, we hope that you will take some of this advice into account.