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Research Facts & Figures
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Economic Forecasts & Updates
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April 2010 Quarterly Forecast
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Private Sector Employment
PRIVATE SECTOR EMPLOYMENT RETROSPECTIVE
In the months since October 2009 the East Bay unemployment rate has been virtually unchanged. It stood at 11.5% in October and 11.6% in February 2010. However, this is only because the labor force shrunk by 20,000 people. In fact there are 9,000 fewer payroll jobs in the East Bay today than there were four months ago. From a statistical point of view this is not huge. It represents a reduction of only 1% of all payroll jobs. However, it is a reduction and an indication that labor markets remain very weak in the East Bay.
Breaking down the job gain and loss by sector it can be clearly seen that the weak labor markets in the East Bay are widespread. Two sectors showing some job gains are the hospitality sector and non-education state government. Clearly we cannot take too much from this. The former depends on continued increases in consumer demand and business travel to sustain job growth, while the latter is clearly not sustainable due to the state’s 2010/2011 fiscal year budget shortfalls. The other services sector had a modest gain over the last four months, but this sector is a catch all for everything not easily defined, and generally follows the rest of the economy.
The only bright spot in the sectoral employment picture is durable goods manufacturing. Over the past four months durable goods manufacturing employment registered a solid gain of over 1,000 new payroll jobs. Though the trade data indicates that this should continue, the closing of NUMMI will offset some if not all of the gains through March.
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