Bay Area Employment Within 3 Percent of Pre-Pandemic Count

Having increased by a (downwardly revised) 8,100 in February, the net number of people living in San Francisco with a paycheck increased by 6,800 in March to 557,600, representing 52,600 more employed residents in the city than there were in March of last year and 78,900 more than in April of 2020 (when pandemic-driven unemployment peaked at 13.0 percent versus closer to 2 percent prior to the pandemic and 2.5 percent last month).

That being said, there are still 13,200 fewer employed people in San Francisco than there were prior to the pandemic and 11,800 fewer people in the labor force (572,100), but that’s a far cry from what was being implied by outdated census figures that were making the rounds in the media last month. And in fact, the labor force in San Francisco, which is highly correlated with the population, is back to within 97 percent of its pre-pandemic count.

The number of East Bay residents with a paycheck increased by 17,400 last month to 1,536,600, which still represents 22,900 fewer employed residents than prior to the pandemic but 108,500 more than at the same time last year and 232,900 more than in April of 2020, with a blended unemployment rate of 3.5 percent.

Employment in San Mateo and Santa Clara increased by 5,300 and 11,200 in March, and as such, there are now over 115,000 more employed people in the Valley (1,464,300) than there were at the same time last year and over 200,000 more than in April of 2020 (but still 13,800 fewer than prior to the pandemic, with 14,200 fewer people in the labor force, for an average unemployment rate of 2.4 percent.

Total employment across Marin, Napa and Sonoma counties increased by 4,400 last month to 438,400, representing 31,700 more employed residents than at the same time last year and 71,400 more than in April of 2020 but still 15,300 fewer than prior to the pandemic with 15,200 fewer people in the combined labor force (451,200) for an unemployment rate of 2.8 percent.

And as such, the total number of Bay Area residents with a job increased by 45,100 in March to 3,996,900, representing 308,700 more employed Bay Area residents than there were at the same time last year, with 585,000 Bay Area jobs having been recovered since the second quarter of 2020 and total employment back to within 97 percent of the pre-pandemic count, as is the labor force. But there are still 65,200 fewer employed Bay Area residents than there were prior to the pandemic having hit (4,062,100) and the labor force is still down by 58,700 to 4,115,800 for an average unemployment rate of 2.9 percent.