Delayed job market data shows that, despite a year-over-year drop in jobs between November 2024 and November 2025, San Mateo and San Francisco counties have the lowest unemployment rates in the state.
Due to the federal shutdown at the end of last year, the California Employment Development Department just released November data Jan. 9, with December 2025 information yet to be published. The report shows that between November 2024 and November 2025, there was a net decrease of 3,400 jobs in San Francisco and San Mateo counties.
The biggest decrease came from professional and business services, which saw a 4,600 year-over-year decrease in jobs.
However, the month-to-month figures between October to November were better, increasing by 3,000 jobs, or 1.5 million positions total, the report added. Most of those increases came from government, transportation and hospitality sectors, with professional, business and technical services still declining.
San Mateo County’s unemployment rate, currently 3.8%, has consistently remained below the state’s unemployment rate of 5.4% and was under the 4.3% national unemployment rate in November.
Data from WARN notices show there was a nearly 25% drop in announced layoffs in San Mateo County between 2024-25 — going from about 4,100 in 2024 to 3,150 in 2025 — and an even steeper drop from some of the workforce reductions in 2023. While Meta announced it was laying off about 300 employees in December, the announcements throughout the year have come from a range of industries, including biotechnology and health care, and are not as concentrated in the tech sector as they were a few years prior.
The decrease in professional, business and technical roles also indicates how the massive injection of AI funds have yet to translate into real economic impacts in the county. Menlo Park is seeing more AI firms, however, the majority still tend to be concentrated in San Francisco and Palo Alto. Bay Area-based companies received about 75% of total AI funding in the United States in 2025, according to Crunchbase data, much of which included billion-dollar deals to some of the dominant companies, such as OpenAI and Anthropic.
Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO
personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who
make comments. Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd,
racist or sexually-oriented language. Don't threaten. Threats of harming another
person will not be tolerated. Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone
or anything. Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on
each comment to let us know of abusive posts. PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK. Anyone violating these rules will be issued a
warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be
revoked.
Please purchase a Premium Subscription to continue reading.
To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account.
We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription.
A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means you’re helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much!
(0) comments
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.