County unemployment rate steadies at 2.1 pct.

Haveman said the 22.4 percent jump in the county tech sector’s job growth in November could very well be an outlier, and that job growth in the Bay Area continues to lag behind the state’s growth rate. The EDD reported the state’s unemployment rate fell to a record low of 4.3 percent in December from 4.6 percent in November. In December 2016, the state’s unemployment rate was 5.2 percent, according to the EDD.

Haveman said the county’s overall job growth rate slowed to just under 2 percent by the end of 2017 after averaging 2.4 percent for the three years preceding 2017 and 3.5 percent over the last five years.

“You could make the argument that the rate of growth is coming back to the reasonable range,” he said, adding that he expected faster job growth for the region than he’s seen in the past year. “For the Bay Area, I think we’ve overshot reasonable.”

But he said an emerging rift between the types of jobs driving growth in San Francisco and Santa Clara counties may paint an interesting picture for San Mateo County. While the tech-heavy region to the north of the county may be slowing growth in related areas such as retail, Haveman said the growth in health care and social assistance jobs in San Jose has boosted overall growth in Santa Clara County jobs in December to 6.4 percent, which he said was almost triple the growth rate the county experienced over the year.

“There is a message here that the growth is not necessarily driven by tech,” he said, adding that health care and social assistance jobs accounted for more than one-third of the job growth in San Jose.

Because the concentration of jobs in the northern part of Santa Clara County spills over to the southern portion of San Mateo County, Haveman said portions of San Mateo County might be more affected by trends in Santa Clara County than they are by those of the San Francisco metropolitan area, which he noted has been more susceptible to shifts in tech.

Haveman said a 17.6 jump in leisure and hospitality jobs in December was promising, but he didn’t expect it to last in the face of a tech downturn. Less surprising to Haveman was a 22 percent increase in construction jobs last month.

anna@smdailyjournal.com

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