From Patch.com: Unemployment Rates Rise in All Peninsula Cities
From the San Jose Mercury News: Bay Area and California job markets are far stronger than first thought
How do we reconcile the two?
The answer is: the Merc is talking about year-over-year changes in labor statisics. 2012 was bad in an historical sense but is an improvement over 2011 nonetheless.
The Patch article refers to the unemployment rate in the months of December and January. An increase in unemployment is normal when the Holidays are over. A more meaningful comparison would be January 2013 vs. January 2012.
From the California Employment Development Department report for San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City, the unemployment rates at various points in time were:
January 2012 7.3%
December 2012 6.0%
January 2013 6.3%
It is clear that the economy is improving, though not as fast as anyone would like. It is also clear that we must be wary of the information that we're given. Before we can argue intelligently about where we're going, we need to know where we are. © 2013 Stephen Yuen
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