Preliminary September labor force data counts for San Francisco, Marin and San Mateo counties pegs the unemployment rate at 8.3%, 7.4% and 8.0% respectively, down 0.5 percentage points in San Francisco, down 0.4 in Marin and 0.3 in San Mateo.
On a revised basis, the number of unemployed in San Francisco fell by 2,300 in September (from 40,200 to 37,900) while the labor force increased by 1,000 (from 458,600 to 459,600) and the number of employed increased from 418,400 to 421,700.
Overall unadjusted California unemployment fell to 11.4% as the labor force increased by 50,400 workers and the ranks of the unemployed fell by 89,000.
Monthly Labor Force Data for Counties: September 2011 (Preliminary) [EDD]
San Francisco County Employment Increases In August [SocketSite]

10 thoughts on “San Francisco And California Employment Increase In September”
  1. Pretty funny how bad economic news always brings out the usual suspects, but no one wants to talk about good economic news.
    What do you think this is going to do to the price of homes? Tipster? Diemos? Spencer? Anyone?
    Hey anon94123, remember how you told us that the tech sector was going to take a big hit? Who is the one doing the hiring these days?
    I had an old boss I have not talked to in years email me out of the blue and ask me if I was interested in coming up to Seattle and working for Amazon. I can’t tell you how many ways that is wrong, but it was nice to be considered I guess. The shortage of tech employees is actually a global thing now: our Chinese employees are getting 25%/yr raises. It won’t be long at that rate before people stop trying to outsource tech jobs.

  2. Enjoy the mini boom while it lasts, NVJ. The business I have to startup silicon valley tech businesses was doing very well March to August, and has now dropped to zero. It’s running worse than 2010, which was slow, but not horrible.
    New tech business formation has essentially stopped. A decent amount of VC money was handed out during that same period, and that will have an effect, but it will likely crest.

  3. ^As if you have credibility in this forum? “friends” “hiring” “business” “apocalypse” = whatever.

  4. Thanks, anon.ed. Typical from you.
    Here’s an article you might find interesting:
    “Firms raised $1.7 billion in the third quarter, said the National Venture Capital Assn. That’s 53% less than the $3.5 billion raised in the same period a year earlier and the smallest pot since the third quarter of 2003.
    The year started out with heavy fundraising, garnering $7.6 billion in the first quarter.”
    http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2011/10/venture-capital-fundraising-8-year-low.html
    After 6 short months, it’s over, at least for now. I’m unfortunately, VERY plugged into this area, and it has completely evaporated. I wish it hadn’t.

  5. From a more reliable source:
    http://www.cnbc.com/id/44985368
    Dow Jones VentureSource just released the latest numbers: VC investments increased 29 percent, by dollar volume, with an 8 percent increase in deals in Q3, from the year-ago quarter.
    Who cashed in? Investors must have been inspired by Zynga and Groupon’s IPO filings—consumer internet companies made major gains. The sector, which VentureSource defines as including online search, entertainment and social media, raised $1.3 billion for 104 deals, that’s more than double the dollar amount raised by 94 deals during the year-ago quarter.

  6. NVJ, those are two different figures. One is money coming IN to VCs, and the other is money going OUT. There is a lag because usually funding is committed two to three years in advance.
    As I noted in my first post at 12:09, it will likely crest.
    Your same source shows investors walking away from early stage funds, which is what I am seeing.
    “Early-stage fund-raising dropped 41% as 52 funds collected $2.1 billion in the first three quarters.” 41% is quite a hit.
    http://www.dowjones.com/pressroom/releases/2011/101011-Q3VCFund-0162.asp
    You can try to show article after article, but I’m right in the epicenter of this industry and I have a good handle on the changes, which is why I can see through the subtleties you cannot. Business has dried up completely for us in this line of business.
    It can reverse course, at any time, but for now it is on the way down.

  7. Thanks for the info tipster. Working in the Valley at a big tech company, I am kind of out of the loop of the small San Francisco start-up scene anymore.
    But tech employment is definitely booming, with all the big boys still hiring like mad.

  8. You’ll start to see the effects of all this in a few months. Only people in the right place have any visibility to this. It went from pretty hot to completely dead in about 2 weeks. Even dot bomb didn’t happen that fast.
    I went from 10 inquiries per month to zero. It hits the start ups, then me, then I shut off spending and it hits my suppliers. I made decent money earlier, spent some of it on some upgrades, now, back to no spending, period. It just ripples through the economy that way.

  9. As I stated re February unemployment when the rate was 9.1% (and it’s bounced between the low 8s and low 9s since then), this is good news as we continue to very slowly crawl out of the deep hole. And I’ll repeat again my prediction that once we get back down to 5% (the mid-2008 rate) SF real estate prices will start climbing as we’ll then no longer just be digging out of holes but will actually be expanding.

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