Bay Area becomes world’s 19th largest economy

If the Bay Area happened to be its own independent nation, it would command the 19th-largest economy in the world, according to the Bay Area Council’s Economic Institute.

And the nine-county region’s dynamic economy is still surging, the Economic Institute states.

In 2014, the last time the local experts released such a comparison to the economic output of other nations, the Bay Area ranked No. 21.

The Bay Area since has jumped ahead of the oil kingdom Saudi Arabia and the financial and vacation hub Switzerland. With its current No. 19 ranking, the region is chasing down the Netherlands, Turkey and Indonesia.

“The Bay Area has emerged from the Great Recession to enter a new period of immense growth and innovation,” the Economic Institute reported in the study, which is the 10th economic profile issued by the organization.

The Bay Area economy, as measured by gross domestic product, produces a yearly economic output valued at $748 billion.

By comparison, the Netherlands, at No. 18, has a GDP of $822 billion. No. 20 Switzerland comes in at $686 billion.

The United States, which still wields the world’s largest economy by far, has an annual economic output valued at $16.77 trillion.

Silicon Valley, fueled by its tech giants and digital startups, has evolved into the primary engine that drives the Bay Area’s remarkable growth, according to the report and The Mercury News’ assessment of state labor data.

Over the one-year period that ended in May, total payroll jobs grew by 3.2 percent in Santa Clara County, which outstripped the 2.3 percent growth in the Bay Area.

California’s job market is expanding at 1.8 percent a year, while the United States’ is growing at 1.6 percent a year — half the pace of the South Bay.

The conclusion? Silicon Valley is an economic engine rather than a caboose.

The Bay Area’s surge in the global economic rankings comes as California has become the 5th-largest economy in the world, recently passing the United Kingdom. As recently as 2012, California had fallen to as low as 10th largest.