Have a great day, John M. Watson
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The Bay Area job market powered to strong gains to cap off 2019, and Santa Clara County was the region’s economic leader, according to a new state government survey released on Friday.
The nine-county Bay Area added 2,900 jobs in December, a monthly report by the state’s Employment Development Department showed.
“In the Bay Area, the San Jose region led the way,” said Taner Osman, a research manager with Beacon Economics.
In December, Santa Clara County gained 1,500 jobs, the East Bay added 900 positions, while the San Francisco-San Mateo region lost 400 jobs, according to the EDD report. Santa Cruz County lost 500 jobs. All the numbers were adjusted for seasonal variations.
The Bay Area job market wound up being considerably stronger in 2019 than in 2018.
Employers in the Bay Area added 91,500 jobs during 2019, which was 2.3 percent more than the jobs the 80,500 jobs the region added in 2018, this news organization’s analysis of the EDD report showed.
Of the three major urban centers in the Bay Area that have at least 1 million jobs, the South Bay was the strongest last year, the analysis of the EDD data determined.
In 2019, Santa Clara County added 33,200 jobs, compared with a gain of 29,800 in the San Francisco-San Mateo area, and an increase of 19,800 positions in the East Bay.
“The Bay Area economic story, particularly in the South Bay, is that companies want to expand, they want to hire people here,” said Stephen Levy, director of the Palo Altobased Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy. “The question is where will companies find people to hire, given the high housing prices and the slow pace of building new homes.”
The tech industry in the Bay Area and California is providing plenty of fuel for the regional and statewide economies, according to economist Sung Won Sohn.
“Technology has healthy upward momentum,” Sohn stated on Friday in his analysis of the statewide job picture. “Professional and business services, which includes scientific and technical services such as software engineers, system analysts, and scientific research and development, remains a workhorse in the state’s economy.”
The California jobless rate was 3.9 percent in December, which kept the unemployment rate statewide at the lowest level on record.
“December marked the end of an impressive year for the state’s economy,” Beacon’s Osman said.
California added 12,600 nonfarm payroll jobs last month, the EDD reported. For all of 2019, California added 310,300 jobs during 2019, according to the EDD report.
“The potential for more employment growth ahead is good” in California, Sohn wrote in his report.
California’s job market grew at an annual pace of 1.8 percent, which was well ahead of the nationwide increase in nonfarm payroll jobs of 1.4 percent.
Yet both the state and the nation lagged far behind the pace of job gains in the Bay Area during 2019.
During 2019, nonfarm payroll job totals increased by 2.9 percent in Santa Clara County, 2.6 percent in the San Francisco-San Mateo region, 1.7 percent in the East Bay, and by 2.3 percent in the Bay Area.
Santa Clara County’s strongest industries during December were manufacturing, technology, and the leisure and hospitality industry, according to an analysis compiled by Beacon Economics and UC Riverside.
The South Bay added 900 manufacturing jobs and 600 tech positions in December. The South Bay also gained 700 jobs in leisure and hospitality, which is made up of the restaurant, hotel, arts, and entertainment sectors.
The East Bay added 1,100 leisure and hospitality jobs, 600 tech positions, and 500 manufacturing jobs, Beacon and UC Riverside reported. However, construction was a weakling with a loss of 1,000 jobs in December.
The job setbacks in the San Francisco-San Mateo region were caused primarily by the loss of 1,100 jobs in transportation and warehousing, 400 in retail, and 300 in technology, according to the Beacon and UC Riverside analysis. The strongest industry in the San Francisco-San Mateo metro area in December was leisure and hospitality, which added 1,100 jobs, and construction, which gained 800.