Preliminary October labor force data counts for San Francisco, Marin and San Mateo counties puts the unemployment rate at 9.9%, 8.1% and 9.1% respectively, up 0.2 percentage points in San Francisco and up 0.1 percentage points in Marin and San Mateo.
While the number of unemployed in San Francisco increased by 700 (from 43,400 to 44,100) in October, the number of employed fell by 1,600 (from 403,700 to 402,100) as the labor force contracted by 1,000 (from 447,100 to 446,100).
Overall California unemployment increased by 0.3 percentage points to 12.3%.
∙ Monthly Labor Force Data for Counties: October 2009 (Preliminary) [EDD]
∙ San Francisco County Unemployment At 9.7 Percent In September [SocketSite]
I don’t want to be accused of spamming your comments, or making light of those that might have lost their jobs, but I can’t resist the opportunity to make a joke:
It’s not all gloom, there are jobs out there, especially in the real estate world!
I love stats. Looks like we are on track to hit double digits – over 10% – by year end. This is in line with what several economists had predicted in the Summer.
And John Williams at Shadowstats.com suggests that real unemployment is actually running at 22%, which, if true, is fast approaching Great Depression unemployment numbers.
Thanks for the leads, Alex. Maybe I’ll look into a new career! It’s certainly gloom and doom here in the construction engineering/architecture world. Lots of folks working short weeks, just holding on. Don’t know what business those suckers are in that are buying at thees still inflated prices; but I sure don’t know anyone who’s considering purchasing until work picks up…
Alex — thanx for a little levity as one of the 22% presented by Chad. Like Sonnyboy I’m in the engineering/environmental/development world and there is none.
Word on the street is belt tightening at Kaiser hospitals due to low patient counts…
22% seems ridiculous to me. Out of everybody I know only 1 person is unemployed, he got laid off about 2-3 months ago. I had another friend that was unemployed, but he found a job about 6 months ago.
I dug out my company phone list for this area from about 1 year ago. 12 gone out of 53 – none voluntarily, none for performance issues. 22.6%
^^^ In contrast a large number of my friends (about 15) are currently unemployed. Maybe I just hang with an unlucky crowd.
Then yesterday e-mails I had sent internally bounced back from two of my (former) co-workers. Investigation revealed that they had been quietly laid off … oops I mean “RIFed” … last week.
A lot of people are currently scraping by on savings which might explain the reduced Kaiser enrollment that EBGuy mentioned.
My brother has been unemployed for about 8 months. The only jobs he can find are those paying about half what he was making for the same type of work. One of the interviewers told him he (the interviewer) had just started working there. At about half his old salary.
The jobless stats only tell half the story. The other story is the pay cuts of the people who are getting rehired.
And don’t even get me started about new college graduates. Of the few we hired this year, all at greatly reduced pay from the year before, none of their friends have full time jobs at all.
@sonnyboy and leedless,
“This business is 90% wasted time”-my Dad who’s been in real estate 35 years, “and you’re unemployed every time you close a deal.”
Good luck to you both. I seriously mean no harm against those who are unemployed, just thought we could all use a laugh at the expense of some jackass Realtors looking for “models”. Biz must be good for them to afford $20/hour strippers to just land clients!
“The only jobs he can find are those paying about half what he was making for the same type of work.”
I wish this type of statistic would be collected since some of my friends are now in this situation as well. Like Tipster, of the FEW recent college grads we hired, it was at a reduced rate from years previous and they were just happy to have a job, unlike most of their fellow grads. In my closer circle of friends, I now know 9 people, all who earned over 150K a year, who have been let go in the last 15 months, and only one of them found a job, and this was at 75K a year.
Pretty soon the only people with jobs are government workers.
Alex, No harm taken! Hee hee; I’m from the school of (to Dad’s growling voice) “Just because you’re not getting PAID doesn’t mean you don’t have a JOB: YOUR JOB IS TO FIND A JOB! Hit the streets, or get on the phone, at 8:00 a.m. Work diligently, until noon, to find something that (legally and ethically) will put $$ in your hands. Take a lunch break from 12 to 12:30 or 1:00. Then resume doing what you were doing in the morning until 5:00 p.m. Repeat until you can afford not to.” Haven’t had to do that in 30-yrs, and am not there, yet, but I (and a number of friends) am starting to getting nervous…No sails on the horizon indicating our work ship is coming soon…..
Justin is correct. And, I know a fire captain that just retired at 52: $127k/yr (with 3% annual COLA) and lifetime medical and dental (San Jose). Most of them go out on “disability”, so lower tax base….Crazy world we live in…While surfing OB one day, I was talking to a Persian dude–a USF law student–and he related that a friend who recently graduated from UOP dental school just became a fireman! His immigrant family was livid (and heart-broken)! But I gotta say, for the money, the guy is probably better off…Crazy world we live in….
@sonnyboy,
“While surfing OB one day”
Now I know for certain why the water is more and more crowded M-F. Hope you got some bombs last week. I know I did.