Correlation, Causation, or Coincidence

The high unemployment rate among new college graduates has been all over the news. If I were in that demographic, I would consider a move to the Bay Area, and not only because of assortative mating.

Item: South Bay Leads U.S. in Job Growth.

The South Bay has the fastest job growth of any of the nation's large urban centers, according to a survey by federal labor officials. Santa Clara County posted a 3.3 percent increase [bold added] in job growth over the one-year period that ended in April, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. The Houston region of Texas was in second place nationwide with a 3.1 percent increase in payroll jobs over the same 12-month period.

Item: San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara area second in nation in college-educated adults.

The South Bay metropolitan area has the nation's second-highest proportion of college-educated residents -- 45.3 percent of adults 25 and older. The San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara area ranks second in the nation only to the Washington, D.C., metro area, which has 46.8 percent of its population college educated. The San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont area ranked fourth, with 43.4 percent.

To be sure, the Silicon Valley unemployment rate of 8.4% is about the same as the national average and is nothing to get excited about. But it's significantly better than the California unemployment rate of 10.9%, and the trend is going in the right direction.