State’s jobless rate hits record 4.3% — with Bay Area’s help

Strong local hiring numbers help California generate a third of all national payroll jobs in December

California’s jobless rate hit a record low in December, fueled in part by sturdy Bay Area gains, state labor officials reported Friday.

Statewide, employers added 52,700 jobs in December. The state posted an unemployment rate of 4.3 percent — its best jobless rate ever, according to data stretching back to 1976.

“California has been outperforming the national economy, generating over one-third of all of the payroll jobs gained in the nation in December,” said Michael Bernick, an employment attorney with law firm Duane Morris, and a former Employment Development Department director.

The Bay Area added 7,500 jobs, powered largely by Santa

Clara County’s gain of 6,500, according to seasonally adjusted data from the EDD.

The East Bay shed 1,000 jobs, while the San Francisco-San Mateo region added that same amount in the final month of the year, EDD data show. Although the Alameda-Contra Costa County area added about 1,100 construction jobs, that was not enough to offset the loss of jobs in tech, retail and health care, Beacon Economics reported.

During 2017, California added 342,500 jobs, a 2.1 percent rise that outperformed nationwide job gains, EDD figures show.

The Bay Area added 63,100 jobs last year, for a 1.6 percent gain.

Santa Clara County and the San FranciscoSan Mateo regions each added 22,000 jobs in 2017 — up roughly 2 percent for both metro areas, according to this newspaper’s analysis. The East Bay added 12,900 jobs in 2017, up 1.1 percent.

Statewide, however, the labor force is shrinking, which could be trouble for the future. The labor force was just under 19.29 million in December, down from 19.35 million in November and

19.36 million in October.

“A concern is that, responding to the high cost of living and skilled labor shortages, people are moving to other states,” said Sun Won Sohn, chief economist with California State

University Channel Islands, in an analysis of the California employment data.

“The labor problem is more severe in California and the Bay Area because of the high cost of living,” Sohn said. “People may be moving away, or not coming here, because they simply can’t afford to live here.”

Although the state’s labor force shrank, Santa Clara County’s labor force expanded in December to nearly 1.08 million, up 0.6 percent from the prior month.

The Bay Area’s strong job gains allayed worries about the region tumbling into a pronounced slump.

“The burst of hiring in Santa Clara County has largely put to rest fears raised earlier this year, when hiring appeared to sputter” in the South Bay, Mark Vitner, an economist with San Francisco-based Wells Fargo, wrote in a research report.

In five of the first nine months of 2017, Santa Clara County suffered job losses. But it posted job gains in each of the final three months, adding

18,600 jobs — more than half of the Bay Area’s total gain of 36,100 jobs in the same stretch.

During the final quarter, the San Francisco-San Mateo area gained 11,200 jobs, while the East Bay added 5,400.

“There are continuing expansions, leases and land acquisitions by tech companies in Santa Clara County and the Bay Area,” said Stephen Levy, director of the Palo Alto-based Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy. “There are no longer any concerns that the Bay Area would be a lagging region behind the United States in terms of job creation.”