Bay Area Employment Slips Despite Drop in Unemployment

While the unemployment rate in San Francisco slipped back under 3 percent last month, the number of employed residents with a job actually dropped by 5,100 to 559,300, with an even larger decline in the labor force, which dropped by 7,000 to 574,900, driving the unemployment rate down.  As such, there are still 4,300 more employed people in San Francisco than there were at the same time last year but nearly 20,000 fewer employed than at the end of 2019, prior to the pandemic, with 9,000 fewer people in the local labor force.

At the same time, the number of employed East Bay residents dipped by 11,500 in April to just over 1,519,000, which was roughly even year-over-year, with 215,000 more employed than in April of 2020, but still 40,000 fewer employed residents than prior to the pandemic with 34,000 fewer people in the labor force.

The number of employed residents spread across San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties ticked down by 16,000 in April to 1,457,000 with a blended unemployment rate of 2.8 percent, which is on par with employment at the same time last year but with 21,000 fewer employed people in Silicon Valley than there were prior to the pandemic with 15,000 fewer people in the local labor force.

Net employment across Marin, Napa and Sonoma counties inched down by 1,800 in April to 438,000, with nearly 4,000 more employed residents spread across the northern counties than there were at the same time last year but 16,000 fewer than there were prior to the pandemic with 15,000 fewer people in the combined labor force (451,000).

And as such, the net number of Bay Area residents with a job ticked down by 35,000 and dropped back under 4 million, with 5,000 more employed residents than at the same time last year and nearly 562,000 more employed people since the second quarter of 2020, but with 89,000 fewer employed residents than there were prior to the pandemic; 140,000 fewer employed than at peak; and 74,000 fewer people in the labor force, with a drop of nearly 51,000 last month which resulted in the unemployment rate inching down to 3.1 percent despite the drop in employment.