Silicon Valley job market slows

In 2018, Silicon Valley added 35,600 jobs, compared with a gain of 47,300 jobs in 2017, a report from Joint Venture Silicon Valley determined. The 2.2 percent growth is the slowest pace of employment growth since the Great Recession ended a decade ago.

The report defined Silicon Valley as the California counties of Santa Clara, Alameda and San Mateo, and San Francisco and the Scotts Valley area of Santa Cruz County. The report found Santa Clara County produced 81 percent — or 28,800 — of the jobs that were added in 2018. That’s up sharply from 2017, when Santa Clara County generated 64 percent, or 30,300 of the jobs added that year.

Google accounted for about 35 percent of the tech industry job growth, Facebook produced 23 percent of the increase in tech jobs and Apple was around 30 percent.

The struggle to control PG&E

Pacific Gas & Electric, the California utility that faces billions of dollars in wildfire damages, hopes to use its bankruptcy to reduce its liabilities and emerge a more stable company.

The company’s management and board of directors might not have all that much control over the outcome. Before a bankruptcy judge has even had a chance to delve into PG&E’s financial problems, investors, lawmakers, regulators and customers are trying to exert authority over the utility and shape its future.

Former Apple lawyer charged

A former senior lawyer at Apple who oversaw the company’s insider trading policies was accused of insider trading by federal prosecutors and securities regulators in complaints made public Wednesday. The Securities and Exchange Commission said in a suit that Gene Levoff, a former senior director of corporate law and a corporate secretary at Apple, repeatedly traded on inside information from 2011 to 2016. On one occasion, regulators claim, Levoff sold roughly $10 million of Apple stock — nearly his entire holdings — from his personal brokerage account four days before Apple announced quarterly earnings July 21, 2015.

Ghosn stands to lose millions

Renault’s board voted unanimously Wednesday to cancel compensation Carl Ghosn was set to receive, days after the French carmaker notified judicial authorities he may have misused company money.

Also Wednesday, the embattled executive hired a star Japanese lawyer known as “the Razor” to prepare for his trial. Ghosn has been detained since November, facing charges of financial wrongdoing as the head of Nissan, the Japanese carmaker that he also ran as part of a global auto alliance with Renault and Mitsubishi.