California, SF Unemployment Rates Fall To Record Lows

Source: San Francisco Chronicle, Roland Li
Photo: Salesforce employees Shantel Villarroel (right) and Pooja Deopura at work for the city’s largest private employer. (Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle 2018)

The unemployment rate in both California and San Francisco fell to a record low in September, the state announced Friday.

The state added 21,300 jobs in September and had an unemployment rate of 4%, down from 4.1% in September 2018. California — the fifth-largest economy in the world if it were a country — now is in the midst of its longest record jobs expansion, 115 months, surpassing the economic boom of the 1960s, according to the Employment Development Department.

San Francisco’s unemployment rate fell last month to a minuscule 1.8% from 2.1% from the prior September, the lowest number the city has ever recorded.

Nationally, the unemployment rate fell to 3.5% in September, the lowest in 50 years.

Despite fears of a recession amid an ongoing U.S.-China trade war and the stumbles of high-profile tech companies like Uber, there are no major signs that the local economy is cooling, said Christopher Thornberg, founder of Beacon Economics in Los Angeles.

“Tales of this expansion’s demise are highly exaggerated. We don’t see any end to it,” Thornberg said.

Jobs numbers could be even stronger if more workers and housing were available in the state, Thornberg said.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/California-s-unemployment-rate-falls-to-record