With the number of San Francisco residents with jobs having increased by 4,100 since the beginning of the year, the unemployment rate in the city has dropped to 5.2 percent and overall employment in San Francisco is within 200 hires of an all-time high.
The number of employed San Francisco residents now totals 465,300, an increase of 13,200 people with jobs over the past year, and the labor force has grown to 490,900 versus 480,000 at the end of 2000 when 465,500 people employed at the dot-com peak and the unemployment rate in the city measured 3 percent, according to California’s Employment Development Department.
The unemployment rate in San Francisco topped out at a little over 10 percent in January of 2010 when 57,600 fewer San Francisco residents were employed than today.
The unemployment rate in Marin ticked down to 4.7 percent in March while the rate in San Mateo was unchanged at 5.0 percent. The unadjusted unemployment rate for California fell from 8.5 to 8.4 percent in March as the labor force increased by 64,200 and employment increased by 65,400.
I suspect we will blow this previous number away. Between the organic growth and the migration from the valley it seems inevitable. Although I think it will be interesting to see how sustainable the current economic environment remains, I have to say the there is an added buzz in the city that I am find more positive.
The thing that makes me believe were at a more sustainable level of prosperity than 2000 are the levels of backlash and real displacement that are happening. I’ll leave out my feelings on the tech / market bubble, but the genuine resentment out there is fairly high. I don’t believe anything like this was so prevalent in the dot com bubble days.