San Francisco Employment Reaches A 15 Year High
A newly released report by the State of California's Economic Development Department revealed that San Francisco's unemployment rate dropped by .2 percent from July to Aug. That brings the total number of employed people living in Frisco to 535,700. As employment tracking company SocketSite points out, that means the City by the Bay is up 24,100 jobs from this time last year and a whopping 99,000 jobs as compared to January 2010. While the year 2000 is regarded as San Francisco's employment apex because it was the year the dot-com boom reached its peak, there are now 70,200 more people with jobs living in the City than there were then.
So what's been driving San Francisco's incredible employment rates? It's a combination of factors, partially driven by a resurgent tech sector and partially because of recent changes in how certain online on-demand service providers do business. The San Jose Mercury News reported that San Francisco added 2,100 tech jobs in August. As SF-based tech companies like Zenefits and Salesforce have experienced remarkable growth recently, it makes sense that they would up their recruitment efforts. Additionally, the classification lawsuit filed against Uber by its drivers has caused other companies to reconsider their employment practices. Personal shopping service Instacart and gourmet meal delivery company Sprig recently have begun hiring in mass as they are moving away from a contractors-only model to one that focuses on hiring and developing full and part-time employees.
Even though San Francisco County has the third-lowest unemployment rate in the entire state, analysts are expecting Frisco's record-setting job growth will only continue. Jeffery Michael, director of the Business Forecasting Center at the University of the Pacific believes that San Francisco will be especially appealing to job seekers as more well-paying positions will need to be filled. "The Bay area will continue to expand and add jobs," Michael told a Mercury News reporter. "The region's economy continues to create tremendous value, high incomes and high growth companies, such as tech companies."
Mario McKellop is a freelance writer who has covered the pop culture beat since 2010.