Bay Area Employment Rebound Sputters

Having dropped by over 90,000 from March through May, yielding an unemployment rate of 12.7 percent, the number of people living in San Francisco with a paycheck rebounded by 33,000 from June through August, driving the unemployment rate, which had been averaging around 2 percent prior to the pandemic, down to 8.5 percent.

Last month, however, employment only inched up by another 1,300 to 517,100, while the labor force count inched up by 1,000 to 564,600, for an unemployment rate of 8.4 percent.

And in fact, while the employment deficit, as measured on a year-over-year basis, totaled a revised 57,400 in August, it actually ticked up to 59,800 in September.

The trend was roughly the same across the other eight Bay Area counties, with the unemployment rate across the East Bay inching down from 9.5 to 9.3 percent and the blended unemployment rate in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties inching down from 7.2 to 7.1 percent.

And as such, while the Bay Area unemployment rate inched down from 8.3 to 8.1 percent last month, and the number of employed residents inched up by 18,700 to 3,701,400, total employment is still down by 410,100 on a year-over-year basis and versus 404,100 lower last month.