On the heels of the weakest first quarter for employment growth since 2009, the number of people living in San Francisco with a job dropped by 1,100 in May to 542,600 versus ticking up by 800 in May of last year and 2,600 in May of 2015.
But with the labor force having dropped by 1,400 as well, the unemployment rate in the city held at a near record 2.7 percent.
At the same time, employment in the city is now 4,600 lower than the all-time high of 547,200 recorded at the end of last year, but there are still 77,100 more people living in San Francisco with paychecks than there were at the end of 2000, an increase of 105,900 since January of 2010 and 4,900 more than at the same time last year (a number which has been trending down since mid-2015).
In Alameda County, which includes Oakland, employment slipped by 300 in May to 804,100 and is now running 6,800 lower than at the end of last year but 4,500 higher on a year-over-year basis (which is the smallest year-over-year increase since early 2011) with an unemployment rate of 3.4 percent and 112,100 more employed residents since the beginning of 2010.
And in fact, employment across the greater East Bay slipped by another 500 in May to 1,336,900, versus increasing by 3,200 at the same time last year, but the unemployment rate dropped to 3.4 percent as the labor force shed 2,300.
Up north, the unemployment rate in Marin County dropped to 2.6 percent with employment inching up by 100 to 135,800.
And down in the valley, while the unemployment rate in San Mateo County dropped to 2.4 percent, employment slipped by 900 to 435,800 and the unemployment rate in Santa Clara County dropped to 2.9 percent despite employment slipping by 600 to 986,100.