Preliminary April labor force data counts for San Francisco, Marin and San Mateo counties puts the unemployment rate at 8.8%, 7.2% and 8.1% respectively, down 0.2 percentage points from March across the board.
The 9.0% unemploment rate for San Francisco in March represented a 25 year high.
UPDATE: A plugged-in reader adds:
There is an interesting detail on the SF numbers. The number of unemployed in SF fell by 1000 from 40,800 to 39,800. But the number of employed fell by 1300 from 414,200 to 412,900. And the number in the “labor force” fell by 2800, from 455,000 to 452,800.
Looks like a few thousand workers packed up and left SF last month. Re the housing market, easing unemployment would certainly be good, but a smaller workforce would not.
∙ Monthly Labor Force Data for Counties: April 2009 (Preliminary) [EDD]
∙ San Francisco County Unemployment Hits 9.0 Percent In March [SocketSite]
Good news! Trillions in economic stimulus actually having some effect?
There is an interesting detail on the SF numbers. The number of unemployed in SF fell by 1000 from 40,800 to 39,800. But the number of employed fell by 1300 from 414,200 to 412,900. And the number in the “labor force” fell by 2800, from 455,000 to 452,800.
Looks like a few thousand workers packed up and left SF last month. Re the housing market, easing unemployment would certainly be good, but a smaller workforce would not.
An improvement in the unemployment rate indicates that clearly, the recession is over. House prices should start zooming up now!!!
The exodus will affect the rental market first.
that explains the moving trucks and the for rent signs…and my handy-dandy parking space in front of my house availability index. (lowest reading 2001, highest reading 2003,slow decline until 2007, now increasing quickly towards 2003 status
[Question possibly answered above (people moving out), but I’ll post this anyway, because it reinforces the explanation].
Can someone explain why page 11 (viewer p 12) of the full report
http://www.calmis.ca.gov/file/lfmonth/calmr.pdf
shows an increase of only 400 jobs total (!) in the “San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City MD” (which I guess leaves out Marin?), reported as a rounding error (0.0). I read it very quickly, and may have missed something.
San Jose/Sunnyvale/Santa Clara lost 6000 jobs (-0.7 % month over month).
I guess you don’t need as many census workers down there.
I hope this is not the best the stimulus can do, because at 10% GDP + a side of cooked books a year, I was expecting a bit more…
Uhh maybe its because unemployed are LEAVING the city.
I hope this is not the best the stimulus can do, because at 10% GDP + a side of cooked books a year, I was expecting a bit more…
Have any of the actual stimulus dollars reached anyone’s pocket yet?
From the NYT:
Nearly three months after President Obama approved a $787 billion economic stimulus package, intended to create or save jobs, the federal government has paid out less than 6 percent of the money, largely in the form of social service payments to states. May 13, 2009
Interesting public data tool just released by Google shows SF is still sitting pretty compared to the 11.5% Mar ’09 State-wide rate.
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=usunemployment&met=unemployment_rate&idim=county:PS060900&idim=state:ST060000
[Editor’s Note: Keep in mind that the State-wide rate fell 0.6 percentage points from March to April (versus the 0.2 for San Francisco).]
So, the unemployment would’ve gone up .5% if the dispossessed stayed. 2800 people might have left about 1000 units vacant in March. Add hundreds units coming online, no wonder they give 2 mo free or 15% discount even without asking. Looks like this chart will continue it’s trajectory for the rest of the year.
Fishtarian,
what is that chart, and the source?
It doesn’t say what area that is for (SF? DF MSA? specific districts?).
asking rents? rents paid?
certainly I’ve seen nothing from another source to suggest that rents are down 15% or more.
..and the March numbers were revised upward right?
The chart is from SFRentStats. It’s asking rent culled from craigslist for all SF areas.
Re: Stimulus, the reality is that it takes time to spend money, particularly for building things (which is part of the reason that the money was spread more broadly than just infrastructure).
I’ve been working to get stimulus dollars spent in a bay area city paving roads. That was some of the first money committed…but the projects still had to jump through process and environmental hoops…our projects have now been approved by Caltrans, and are scheduled to go out to bid next month. The bid process, approval and contract negotiation will take additional time…if we’re lucky actual work will begin in the fall, but much of it will probably happen next spring after the rainy season.
Sad, I know…this is only paving streets…not rocket science. But stimulus did not relax the rules everyone must operate under. And believe it or not, the process has been significantly faster than usual!
From my experience in this, I think you’re not really going to see stimulus having much of an impact until fall. And it will pale beside California absolutely falling apart.
^^^ Which is exactly why many were calling for an immediate payroll tax holiday rather than public works projects or TARP/PPIP. I know — people would just use that money to pay down debt, but it would have been nicer if all the government funds channelled to the banks got there via the hands of the debtors, and much better for the economy, IMO.
“immediate payroll tax holiday”
Keep in mind there has already been a slight withholding adjustment for federal income taxes (certain brackets). Did anyone notice? 🙂
I have no idea why they did this via income taxes rather than payroll taxes. The payroll tax is extremely regressive, so a payroll tax credit would help “disproportionally” lower- and middle- wage earners. Rich folks (and non W2 wage earners) need relief too, I guess…
In our modern technical age, there is no reason to have taxes collected in such craven ways (it could be streamlined). But that’s a subject for another reality.