Having slipped in April, the number of people living in San Francisco with a paycheck increased by 5,300 in May to 516,300, representing the most employed residents in the city since the pandemic hit and 37,500 more employed residents than at the same time last year.

That being said, there were still 54,500 fewer employed residents of San Francisco last month than there were prior to the pandemic, or the city’s full reopening, and the labor force was still down by 39,900 people with an unemployment rate of 5.1 percent (versus 2.8 percent prior to the pandemic).

At the same time, the number of employed East Bay residents increased by 14,200 in May to 1,436,700, which is 119,000 more than at the same time last year but still 122,800 fewer than prior to the pandemic with 77,300 fewer people in the labor force as well.

Employment in both San Mateo and Santa Clara increased last month as well, by 4,100 and 9,600 respectively. And as such, there are over 100,000 more people employed in the Valley (1,370,200) than there were at the same time last year but still 107,900 fewer than there were prior to the pandemic, with 77,600 fewer people in the labor force (1,437,000) with an unemployment rate of 4.6 percent.

A total of 45,000 jobs have been recovered across Marin, Napa and Sonoma since May of last year, but the number of employed North Bay residents (421,700) is still 32,000 lower than prior to the pandemic, with 22,300 fewer people in the combined labor force (444,100) and an average unemployment rate of 5.0 percent.

And with over 300,000 (301,800) more Bay Area residents now employed than there were at the same time last year, the Bay Area unemployment rate has inched down to 5.4 percent but with 217,100 fewer people in the labor force than there were prior to the pandemic, versus 250,600 fewer in April, and still 317,200 fewer employed.

2 thoughts on “Bay Area Employment Rebounding, But…”
  1. The headline and the chart don’t match. The labor force is actually not rebounding at all and is slightly sagging. Looks like folks that moved out have not returned

    1. While nominal, the Bay Area labor force inched up around 1 percent last month and recorded its first year-over-year increase, of an even more nominal 0.3 percent, since December of 2019.

      That being said, point taken and we’ve since dropped “Labor Force” from the headline as it could have implied that both employment and the labor force are recovering/rebounding equally, which certainly hasn’t been the case and would run counter to one of our main points.

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