The unemployment rate in San Francisco has held at 3.3 percent for the third month in a row. But based on a revised benchmark and accounting, the number of people living in San Francisco with a job ticked up by 1,300 in February to 535,000, which is the second-highest employment in the history of the city, second only to a record-setting 536,400 in December.
And there are now 69,500 more people living in San Francisco with paychecks than there were at the height of the dot-com peak in 2000, which is 13,600 higher over the past year and an increase of 98,300 since January of 2010.
At the same time, employment in Alameda County, which includes Oakland, increased by 1,900 in February to 791,900, an increase of 13,400 over the past year. And the unemployment rate held at 4.3 percent for the third month in a row as the unemployment rate for the greater East Bay dropped to 4.3 percent as well.
Remember when the Bay Area economy was about to collapse? It was so long ago….
I remember noticing during the economic downturn that every other person I had a conversation with worked in tech.
Every time the unemployment rate dips towards the 4% line (2001 and 2007) it signals a recession is coming. The smart money is cashing out now while the not so smart money is saying “but it’s different this time”.
Maybe true in the narrow sense that, in order to have a recession, you have to have a point to recede from.