SF’s Economy Grew More Than Any Big U.S. County

[sopas ej]

From The San Francisco Standard:

It’s Not All Doom and Gloom, SF’s Economy Grew More Than Any Big U.S. County

Written by Kevin Truong
Published Dec. 20, 2022 • 11:30am


Skyline of Downtown San Francisco, Calif. | Camille Cohen/The Standard

San Francisco saw the biggest jump in its real gross domestic product (GDP) of any large county in the U.S. for 2021, a countervailing point to the grim economic news that has predominated in recent months.

From 2020 to the end of last year, San Francisco saw an increase of 14% to its real GDP, which is a measure of the total value of goods and services produced in a specific region, adjusted for inflation. Between those two years the county saw its GDP increase from $175.9 billion to $200.5 billion

That was the largest upswing measured by the Bureau of Economic Analysis among counties with populations greater than 500,000. The agency said the leading contributor to San Francisco’s growth was the finance and insurance industry, which benefited from the booming stock market.

California as a whole saw its GDP rise by 7.8% over the same period. San Francisco’s economic growth between 2020 and 2021 ranked as first among all counties in the state, outstripping fellow Bay Area counties like Santa Clara (13.3%), San Mateo (12.9%) and Alameda (6.5%)

San Francisco saw a small decrease in its GDP due to the pandemic, experiencing a 0.2% drop in its economic output between 2019 and 2020 from $176.2 billion to $175.9 billion. But the economy came roaring back in 2021, with San Francisco’s $200.5 billion GDP ranking as the fifth highest in the state behind Los Angeles, Santa Clara, Orange and San Diego counties.


The Financial District in San Francisco on Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022. | Camille Cohen/The Standard

The Bay Area as a whole benefited from the large economic shifts that were kicked off by the pandemic, which shifted commerce, communication and corporate activity online.

But this boost has crashed back down to earth in 2022, amid a pullback in venture capital investments, a cooldown in the stock market and higher interest rates put in place to combat inflation.

Now, with many experts projecting a recession in 2023, and Downtown SF’s economic struggles proving itself a hot topic nationally, it’s yet to be seen how resilient the local economy can be in a challenging environment.

“Unfortunately, the tech sector is the wind beneath the wings of the Bay Area economy, and that breeze does appear to be dying down,” said Charles Dougherty, a senior economist at Wells Fargo.



Link: https://sfstandard.com/business/its-...ig-u-s-county/

[iheartthed]

The Houston (Harris County) number is pretty shocking: https://www.bea.gov/sites/default/fi.../lagdp1222.pdf

[AaronPGH]

Let's see how 2022 stacks up.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

The Houston (Harris County) number is pretty shocking: https://www.bea.gov/sites/default/fi.../lagdp1222.pdf

Oil and gas industry was on the skids during the pandemic. I'm curious how 2022 will turn out.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by JManc

Oil and gas industry was on the skids during the pandemic. I'm curious how 2022 will turn out.

I don't trust the census estimates at all. Harris County has had what appears to be just about the worst economic performance of any major county since 2020, but Houston is supposedly still fast growing? That doesn't make sense.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I don't trust the census estimates at all. Harris County has had what appears to be just about the worst economic performance of any major county since 2020, but Houston is supposedly still fast growing? That doesn't make sense.

All data from 2020-2021 is going to be really weird and outlier due to covid and the sharp drastic changes in everything during those years. I wouldn't put a lot of stock in stats from the pandemic times as its going to be crazy.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I don't trust the census estimates at all. Harris County has had what appears to be just about the worst economic performance of any major county since 2020, but Houston is supposedly still fast growing? That doesn't make sense.

I think Houston's population growth is largely coasting on momentum; it is still the place to go even if there might be some lagging indicators down the line reflecting the economic slowdown between 2019-2021.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by JManc

I think Houston's population growth is largely coasting on momentum; it is still the place to go even if there might be some lagging indicators down the line reflecting the economic slowdown between 2019-2021.

Despite complaints on politics and stuff the growth in the USA is still following a pattern of easiest to settle -----> Hardest to settle in a very predictable path (can alter with technology hence the sunbelts rise in the late 20th century)

Texas still has a very enormous amount of moderate quality land to develop (Actually the whole of North America does, we live very undensley in USA, CA, Mex for advanced countries) and has a very long track to run. And as energy costs go down in relative terms previously difficult and expensive places to live (mountains and the upper Plaines) will fill out as well once the mountain west and sunbelt reach their natural economic limit, I'd expect sometime in the 2080's or so. Of course, this is a moving target.

this all changes with the advent of true fusion power but that's still a way off.

[dimondpark]

So far in 2022, California's growth slowed a bit in Q1 and Q2 but actually outpaced Texas again in Q3, which was very unexpected.

[homebucket]

Good news but I think we'll probably see a reversal of this trend for 2022 especially after the Q4 numbers are released.

I think I'm more interested to see how the pre-pandemic (2019) numbers compared to post-pandemic (2023 and beyond). The pandemic numbers definitely inflated the tech growth, which we are now cutting back on, probably back to early 2020 levels, which in the long run was already trending upwards, just not at pandemic-induced unstainable levels of growth, at which point it'll likely continue on the pre-pandemic trajectory.

Brace yourselves. Google layoffs are coming.

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by homebucket

Good news but I think we'll probably see a reversal of this trend for 2022 especially after the Q4 numbers are released.

I think I'm more interested to see how the pre-pandemic (2019) numbers compared to post-pandemic (2023 and beyond). The pandemic numbers definitely inflated the tech growth, which we are now cutting back on, probably back to early 2020 levels, which in the long run was already trending upwards, just not at pandemic-induced unstainable levels of growth, at which point it'll likely continue on the pre-pandemic trajectory.

Brace yourselves. Google layoffs are coming.

Well, we contracted along with the rest of the country between Q1 and Q2 before jumping in Q3. I suspect you are right about Q4 though. Let's go ahead and batten down the hatches.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by homebucket

Good news but I think we'll probably see a reversal of this trend for 2022 especially after the Q4 numbers are released.

I think I'm more interested to see how the pre-pandemic (2019) numbers compared to post-pandemic (2023 and beyond). The pandemic numbers definitely inflated the tech growth, which we are now cutting back on, probably back to early 2020 levels, which in the long run was already trending upwards, just not at pandemic-induced unstainable levels of growth, at which point it'll likely continue on the pre-pandemic trajectory.

Brace yourselves. Google layoffs are coming.

Yes, 2022 will look interesting, but so far I don't think these cuts have been due to an economic slowdown. Most companies have blamed them on overzealous hiring in 2020 and 2021... But in reality I think they're just getting spooked by investor sentiment.

[homebucket]

Pretty generous.

Salesforce, San Francisco’s largest private employer, lays off 10% of staff
Joshua Bote, SFGATE
Jan. 4, 2023

In the first major blow in 2023 to the tech industry, Salesforce — San Francisco’s largest private employer — is laying off about a tenth of its staff, a reduction that could potentially mean the loss of over 7,000 jobs globally in the next few weeks.

The layoffs were announced early Wednesday morning in a SEC filing and in a letter to employees from Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff dated Wednesday. It is unclear if any employees at Salesforce’s subsidiaries, including Slack, are affected.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about how we came to this moment,” Benioff said in the letter addressed to Salesforce’s “ohana.” “As our revenue accelerated through the pandemic, we hired too many people leading into this economic downturn we’re now facing, and I take responsibility for that.”

...

Affected employees will receive “a minimum of nearly five months of pay, health insurance, career resources, and other benefits to help with their transition,” according to the Benioff letter. As of January 2022, the company employed 73,541 people.

https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/...s-17693821.php

[JManc]

Damn, I wish I can get fired from Salesforce.

[DCReid]

Originally Posted by JManc

Damn, I wish I can get fired from Salesforce.

Wonder if they will try to back out of the Chicago building in Wolf Point that was just finished...

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by DCReid

Wonder if they will try to back out of the Chicago building in Wolf Point that was just finished...

Probably just re-negotiate to a smaller lease.

[Investing In Chicago]

Originally Posted by homebucket

Pretty generous.



https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/...s-17693821.php

My wife worked at Salesforce for nearly 9 years, and this past August was offered 1 year of severance plus accelerated vesting of her RSU's, it was almost too good to be true. 

[JManc]

Originally Posted by homebucket

Probably just re-negotiate to a smaller lease.

And sublet any leases they signed on to. Probably keep enough of a presence to retain naming rights. I think they did that with the big Salesforce building in SF. WHich is good because the Millennium Tower is going to fall on it eventually. lol

[homebucket]

As expected.

Google to cut 12,000 jobs in 6% reduction of global workforce
Mark Bergen, Julia Love, Davey Alba, Bloomberg News

Google parent Alphabet Inc. said it will cut about 12,000 jobs, more than 6% of its global workforce, becoming the latest tech giant to retrench after years of abundant growth and hiring.

The cuts will affect jobs globally and across the entire company, Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai told employees in an email on Friday, writing that he takes “full responsibility for the decisions that led us here.”

Shares of Alphabet gained as much as 1.8% during premarket trading in New York on Friday after the announcement was made public. The stock has fallen about 30% over the past year.

With the layoffs, Google joins a host of other tech giants that have drastically scaled back operations amid a faltering global economy and soaring inflation. Meta Platforms Inc., Twitter Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. have all slashed their ranks. Thanks to a resilient search business, Google has been one of the longest tech holdouts. But the company is dealing with a slowdown in digital advertising and its cloud-computing division continues to trail Amazon and Microsoft Corp.

“These are important moments to sharpen our focus, reengineer our cost base, and direct our talent and capital to our highest priorities,” Pichai wrote in the email.

He said the company has a “substantial opportunity in front of us” with artificial intelligence, a key investment area where Google is facing a surge in recent competition.

Pichai said Alphabet would be paying affected employees at least 16 weeks of severance and six months worth of health benefits in the US, with other regions receiving packages based on local laws and practices. Bonuses won’t be affected, he said.

In October, the company reported third-quarter earnings and revenue that missed analyst expectations. Profit declined 27% to $13.9 billion compared to the prior year. At the time, Pichai said Google would curb its expenses and Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat said the number of new jobs would fall by more than half in the fourth quarter from the previous period.

Google’s reduction in headcount follows investor pressure to adopt a more aggressive strategy to curb spending. In November, TCI Fund Management Ltd. urged the internet search giant in an open letter to publicly set a target for profit margins, increase share buybacks and reduce losses in its portfolio of Other Bets, Alphabet’s moonshot division.

“The company has too many employees and the cost per employee is too high,” TCI Managing Director Chris Hohn said, noting that Alphabet’s headcount had swelled 20% per year since 2017.

Google has made a series of cost-cutting moves in recent months, canceling the next generation of its Pixelbook laptop and permanently shuttering Stadia, its cloud gaming service. Earlier in January, Verily, a biotech unit of Alphabet, said it was cutting 15% of its staff.

Since 2017, the company has more than doubled its workforce, which reached 186,779 in the most recent quarter. Many of those hires were for Google’s cloud division, where the company is trying to build a second sales line to supplement its ads business.

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/...f-17730437.php

[homebucket]

Facebook parent company Meta to drastically reduce San Francisco office space
Sam Moore, SFGATE
Jan. 19, 2023

Meta confirmed Thursday it's doing away with 435,000 square feet of office space in a downtown San Francisco high-rise, the San Francisco Business Times first reported.

A spokesperson for Meta confirmed with SFGATE that the company listed the space, located inside a mixed-use high-rise at 181 Fremont St., for sublease. The tech giant will keep its office at 250 Howard St., which will now be its only office in San Francisco.

The decision was made in an effort to embrace the remote work experience, the spokesperson shared in a statement.

“The past few years have brought new possibilities around the role of the office, and we are prioritizing making focused, balanced investments to support our most strategic long-term priorities and lead the way in creating the workplace of the future. Our aim is to build a best-in-class remote work experience to help everyone do the best work of their careers no matter where they are," the statement said.

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/artic...e-17729056.php