Having climbed to over 57,500 in April, the number of San Francisco residents that filed a new/initial unemployment claim dropped to 24,243 in May.
That being said, the number of employed people residing in the city has continued to decline and over 133,000 new unemployment claims have been filed by San Francisco residents since the start of the year. As a point of comparison, there were a total of 29,000 people collecting unemployment insurance in San Francisco at the height of the Great Recession and 42,700 unemployed people overall.
And with just over 200,000 new unemployment claims having been filed across the Bay Area last month, which was down from 440,000 new claims in April, the number of unemployment claims filed since the start of the year now totals over a million, with over 234,000 initial claims having been filed in Santa Clara County so far this year, followed closely by Alameda County with a year-to-date total of 229,000.
While there will be some recovery, I do not see a big portion of the jobs returning – all the restaurants and other businesses downtown that depend on people working downtown (rather than at home) will have a tough time. Also, the Uber and Lyft people will also continue to see a reduction in fares. Hotels and all of the big event centers will also have a tough time recovering. If the stories about allowing more telecommuting bear out, then there will be a lot of collateral damage in terms of employment.