While the number of people living in San Francisco with a paycheck typically ticks up by a few thousand in September, net employment inched down by 600 last month to 565,200. But with 2,000 people having left the local labor force, the unemployment rate inched down from 2.3 to 2.1 percent as well.
Despite slipping last month, there are still 34,600 more employed residents in San Francisco than there were at the same time last year and 86,500 more employed than there were in April of 2020, when the pandemic-driven unemployment rate peaked at 13.0 percent, but 5,600 fewer employed residents in the city than there were prior to the pandemic and 6,500 fewer people in the labor force (577,400).
The number of East Bay residents with a paycheck inched up by 2,400 in September to 1,537,900, representing 60,500 more employed residents than at the same time last year and 234,200 more employed than in April of 2020, but still 21,600 fewer employed residents than prior to the pandemic with 23,100 fewer people in the labor force.
Employment in San Mateo County slipped by 400 in September but inched up by 300 in Santa Clara. And while effectively unchanged last month, there were 81,800 more employed people in the Valley (1,483,200) than there were at the same time last year, over 221,000 more employed than in April of 2020, and 4,900 more employed residents in the Valley than there were prior to the pandemic with 400 fewer people in the labor force for an unemployment rate of 2.1 percent.
Employment across Marin, Napa and Sonoma counties was effectively unchanged last month, inched up by 200 to 440,800, representing 15,800 more employed residents spread across the northern counties than there were at the same time last year, and 73,800 more employed residents than in April of 2020, but there are still 12,900 fewer employed residents than there were prior to the pandemic with 14,500 fewer people in the combined labor force (451,900).
Overall, the total number of Bay Area residents with a job effectively held in September, inching up by 1,900 to at 4,026,900, with 192,700 more employed Bay Area residents than there were at the same time last year, nearly 616,000 more employed residents since the second quarter of 2020, and only 35,200 fewer employed Bay Area residents than there were prior to the pandemic having hit (4,062,100), with an overall unemployment rate of just 2.5 percent.
At the same time, there are still 44,500 fewer people in the Bay Area labor force than there were prior to the pandemic having hit and nearly 95,000 fewer people than in October of 2019 when the local labor force peaked. We’ll keep you posted and plugged-in.
2.1% unemploymend! A recession is clearly right around the corner.
Look the lack of workers is so bad … I even took a consulting gig. I haven’t done paid hourly work in 10 years but this project was too cool to pass up.