California, SF unemployment rates fall to record lows
Roland Li
sfchronicle.com
Oct.18, 2019
San Francisco is at the center of California’s economic boom, which has brought the unemployment rate to a record low.Photo: Michael Macor / 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.
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.