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Employers in California added 28,800 jobs to payrolls in June, a surprisingly positive number amid a weak labor market nationally. The state's unemployment rate rose slightly, to 11.8%, from 11.7% the month before, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday morning. Click for a state-by-state map of unemployment rates California had lost 29,200 jobs in May, due in part to manufacturing sluggishness from the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. The addition of jobs this month, though a surprise, is one more sign of the fickle nature of this economic recovery, economists say.  L.A. TIMES

Gov. Jerry Brown appointed an advisor, Michael Rossi, to the board of the California High-Speed Rail Authority on Wednesday. Rossi is Brown's senior advisor for jobs and business development and had a long banking and finance career prior to joining his Democratic administration. Rossi was placed in the position held until Wednesday by David Crane, who was appointed by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and who also serves on the UC Board of Regents.  L.A. NOW RELATED: California gets federal high-speed rail funds

School principals are being forced to assume additional managerial responsibilities - even some they may not be sufficiently prepared for - amid ongoing cuts to state education budgets, according to a recently released report. A survey of 600 principals in California conducted by the San Francisco-based nonprofit WestEd found that they are taking on tasks such as fundraising, managing school facilities and site budgets without appropriate training or mentors. State funding cuts also have reduced the number of support staff, such as assistant principals and instructional coaches, who have historically taken on those peripheral jobs, according to the report.

The film and television industry in Los Angeles County has lost more than 16,000 jobs since 2004, mostly due to work migrating out of state, a new report revealed. Last year, the entertainment business generated 102,100 jobs in the county, down 14% from its peak of 118,200 jobs in 2004, according to a study released Friday by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. During the same period, L.A.'s share of overall jobs in the motion picture and video category fell to 51% from 60%. (The figures exclude employment in the music and post-production industries.)

Robert Shaffer DOWNTOWN -- Nestle USA will cut 64 Glendale jobs in what the company calls a restructuring effort to stay competitive. The layoffs are a piece of the 1% total work force reduction that will eliminate 225 of 19,500 jobs in the company nationwide. It is part of an overall reorganization of the company. The company's national headquarters are located in Glendale. Some layoffs are immediate and some will happen in the future, said Kimberly Constant, a company spokeswoman.

Alecia Foster BURBANK -- Stating it might be "the most difficult series of decisions that the company has made in the last 20 years," the Walt Disney Co. announced Tuesday that it will cut about 4,000 jobs worldwide. Citing a "softening economic environment" the company notified employees via e-mail that cuts would begin within the next week. "We hope to have this accomplished sometime before July," said Ken Green, spokesman for the Walt Disney Co. The cuts will be made equally throughout all levels of the company, which employs 120,000 people worldwide, Green said.

Josh Kleinbaum As the Glendale City Council placed 20 minor amendments to the city's charter on a citywide ballot for voter approval, Mayor Bob Yousefian opened the door for a major charter change. Yousefian said that council members put in enough hours to qualify for a full-time job, and that he would support a measure to appropriately compensate council members. He said such a measure would need to come from the city's residents, but he would try to place it on the ballot if residents collected about 4,000 signatures.

The entertainment industry’s difficulties in 2009 were capped off with an annual decline in employment of about 9,000 jobs as productions continued to be filmed in other states, raising concern about the future of the industry in the region, according to a report released Thursday. Still, good news for area economies could be on the horizon as new opportunities for local productions are expected to create up to 3,000 jobs in the area, said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, which issued the report.

As dawn broke over Sacramento early Thursday morning, the State Legislature wrapped up a marathon session that finally put to bed a two-year spending plan that will bridge the state’s unprecedented $42-billion deficit caused by the global fiscal crisis. The Democrats in the Legislature, along with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and a handful of courageous Republican lawmakers, put together a budget compromise that begins to lay the foundation for getting California working again. Much about the budget plan was difficult to support and undoubtedly will cause significant pain to many Californians.

Montrose resident Don France is no stranger to the working world. The 83-year-old began working when he was 14 and didn't retire until he was in his late 70s, he said. France's first position was a custodial job at a combination tavern, service station and grocery store. When he moved to California from Oregon after World War II, France worked many different jobs. At various times he was a newspaperman, a taxi cab driver, an ambulance driver, a salesman and restaurant manager.

After two seasons at the helm of Hoover High football and following one of the more successful seasons for the Tornadoes in some time, Andrew Policky has stepped down from his post as Hoover's head football coach to return to his alma mater, taking over as the new Arcadia head football coach. Policky, an Arcadia graduate, announced his departure to his team on Thursday after accepting his new position on Wednesday. “When I was at Hoover, it wasn't something I thought a lot about,” said Policky of returning to Arcadia, where he played football and graduated in 1999 and later returned as an assistant coach.

Taking the stand in federal court on Tuesday, a former Glendale parks manager called one of two ex-city workers who is suing for alleged wrongful termination a "jerk" and "one of the worst employees" he's worked with. Dave Ahern, former assistant Community Services & Parks Department director, testified in a U.S. District courtroom in downtown Los Angeles that Russell Hauck was "harmful" to other employees and the community. Hauck and former park naturalist Eric Grossman are suing Ahern, former Parks & Recreation Director George Chapjian and the city of Glendale for allegedly being laid off in 2011 after they raised concerns about Ahern's misuse of city resources.

Three finalists for the top administrative job at Glendale Community College spoke of transparency, trust and compassion during a public forum Thursday where each put forth their vision for the campus. Born and raised in Mauritius, a small island off the southern coast of Africa, Rajen Vurdien is president of Fullerton College, a post he has held since 2010. Previously, he was a vice president at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo for six years. "I see the Glendale position as an opportunity for me to grow and serve the students in a different capacity," he said, explaining why he wants to be the school's next supt./president.

Creators of a software program called Grammarly recently conducted a study of the grammar used in LinkedIn member profiles. They found that people with fewer grammar errors in their profiles ascended to higher positions, got more promotions and changed jobs more often. The implication: better grammar correlates with greater success. Without knowing more about the study it's hard to know how strong that correlation is. For example, the idea of "grammar errors" is surprisingly fluid.

An Arkansas man pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges that he sexually assaulted a 21-year-old Illinois woman in Glendale after she answered his Craigslist ad for a personal assistant, officials said. Garry Dwayne Boga, 27, faces one felony count of sexual battery by fraud, one felony count of sexual penetration by a foreign object, two felony counts of assault on a cohabitant and felony robbery, according to a Los Angeles County Superior Court criminal complaint. He was arrested March 27 in Burbank after the woman reported that she answered his Craigslist posting for a personal assistant, met him in Hollywood and was later driven to an apartment in Glendale, according to police.

An Arkansas man who posed as a musician was charged Tuesday with allegedly sexually assaulting a 21-year-old Illinois woman in Glendale after she responded to his Craigslist job posting for a personal assistant, police said. Garry Dwayne Boga, who also used the name “Tavion,” faces one felony count of sexual penetration by a foreign object, felony sexual battery by fraud, two felony counts of assault on his cohabitant and felony robbery, according to a Los Angeles County Superior Court criminal complaint.

The next superintendent of Glendale Community College probably will be one of 12 candidates who will set foot on campus in early April for interviews. At a board of trustees meeting this week, Donna Voogt, administrative dean of human resources for the college, said the 11-member hiring committee had screened 23 applications on March 15 that met the minimal qualifications for the job. Of those 23 applicants, 12 were chosen to participate in on-campus interviews April 2 and 3. But with the hiring committee sworn to secrecy, college trustees will be left in the dark about the backgrounds of each of the 12 candidates for now. At a board meeting this week, Glendale Community College trustee Ann Ransford jokingly spoke of her futile attempt to gain information.

I wholeheartedly agree with city treasurer Ron Borucki that his position should be an appointed one. Some positions in city government should not be based on politics. The city treasurer needs to have a background in banking. We need the best-qualified candidate, not the most politically connected, the most popular, or the one who can raise the most campaign funds. The city treasurer should not be beholden to voters nor campaign donors; they need to do what is fiscally responsible and what is in the best interest of the city's assets.

City Council candidates on the campaign trail have lobbed critiques at city employees, bashing their pensions and salaries, and, at a campaign forum Wednesday, their ability to serve on the council. Two retired city employees, Sam Engel and Edith Fuentes, are running for a seat on the City Council dais in the April election. Chahe Keuroghelian, a former city employee, also is vying for a council seat. While Engel and Fuentes say their decades of experience at City Hall would give them an edge in office, other candidates at the Chevy Chase Homeowner's Assn.

Rather than raising money for his own campaign for city treasurer, Councilman Rafi Manoukian plans to set up a fundraising committee to battle a ballot measure that could prevent him from taking the job. While Manoukian is running unopposed for treasurer, Measure A, if passed, would convert the elected position into an appointed one. “The majority of my focus on the campaign will be against the measure,” Manoukian said in an interview, adding...