Drop in Labor Force Driving Unemployment Rates Down

Having dropped by 5,400 in April, the net number of San Francisco residents with a job dropped inched back up by 400 in May to 534,100 but was still down by over 10,000 people on a year-over-year basis, with over 41,000 fewer employed residents in San Francisco than there were in February of 2020, prior to the pandemic really having hit.

And while the unemployment rate in San Francisco just dropped to “only 3.0 percent!,” that’s with the labor force having contracted by over 9,000 people over the past two months, over 38,000 fewer people in the local labor force (550,800) than there were in the first quarter of 2020, and employment having shed three years of pre-pandemic growth.

At the same time, the number of employed East Bay residents ticked back up by 5,000 people in May, having dropped by over 12,000 in April, but remains down by 8,000 people on a year-over-year basis, with over 65,000 fewer employed residents than there were prior to the pandemic and over 54,000 fewer people in the East Bay labor force (1,566,600), which ticked down from April, driving the unemployment rate back down “under 4 percent!”

Having dropped by over 11,000 in April, the net number of employed residents spread across San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties inched up by 1,100 in May to 1,412,200 but with over 20,000 fewer employed residents than there were at the same time last year, nearly 80,000 fewer employed people in Silicon Valley than prior to the pandemic and nearly 70,000 fewer people in the local labor force (1,459,300), which dropped by over 5,000 people in May, driving the unemployment rate down to “just 3.2 percent.”

Net employment spread across Marin, Napa and Sonoma counties ticked back up by 3,200 to 438,700 in May, having dropped by 3,900 in April, but slipped in a year-over-year basis, with over 18,000 fewer employed than prior to the pandemic and nearly 17,000 fewer people in the combined labor force (453,000) for an unemployment rate of “only 3.2 percent.”

And as such, while the net number of Bay Area residents with a job ticked up by 9,700 to 3,889,800 in May, having dropped by over 30,000 in April to a two-year low, total employment remains at 2015 levels, with over 40,000 fewer employed residents than there were at the same time last year and over 200,000 fewer employed residents than there were prior to the pandemic, with the labor force having dropped by over 50,000 people over the past two months, driving the overall Bay Area unemployment rate back “under 4 percent!”