A company has laid-off 85 employees from it’s facility on Hangar Way in Watsonville, and 159 more from its headquarters in Scotts Valley. Fox Racing Shox designs and manufactures products for bicycles and off-road vehicles. Although normally companies that employ at least 75 workers are required by state law to give employees at least a 60-day notice of lay-offs or closures….a March Executive Order, by Governor Gavin Newsom, temporarily suspended that 60-day notice (due to the Covid-19 pandemic). The Santa Cruz Seaside Company has temporarily laid off nearly 1100 employees, and several hospitality companies have also laid of dozens of workers. The county’s unemployment rate has gone from 3.5 % to over 20 %.
