Bay Area Adds More than 15,000 Jobs as Employment Surges

The Bay Area economy created 15,400 jobs in February, raising total employment in the region to the highest level in three years, the state's Employment Development Department reported Friday.

But despite positive job growth in the Bay Area, the net gain statewide was a mere 4,000 jobs.

"California's economy is being led by the Bay Area," said Scott Anderson, senior economist with Wells Fargo Securities. "The Bay Area is certainly the bright spot in the state."

The Bay Area has added jobs for seven consecutive months, and all three major urban centers in the nine-county region are now making significant employment gains. The South Bay added 4,100 jobs last month, while the East Bay gained 3,200 and the San Francisco-San Mateo-Marin region added 7,100, seasonally adjusted figures showed.

"The Bay Area is producing what the world wants," said Jon Haveman, chief economist with the Bay Area Council's Economic Institute. "High-end computer manufacturing, information services, professional and business services are all doing well and creating jobs."

To be sure, the Bay Area has a long way to go to recapture the jobs lost during the recession. Still, the current job trends show the region also has come a long way since the depths of the downturn.

Employment totals in the Bay Area are now at their highest levels since February 2009. The East Bay and South Bay are at similar multiyear highs.

The statewide jobless rate was 10.9 percent last month, unchanged from January. The United States had an unemployment rate of 8.3 percent in February, which also was the same as in January.

In February, the South Bay posted a jobless rate of 8.7 percent, down from 8.9 percent the previous month; the East Bay's was unchanged at 9.3 percent, while the San Francisco area's was at 7.4 percent, worse than the previous month's 7.3 percent rate, a Beacon Economics estimate culled from the EDD figures shows.

The overall Bay Area jobless rate was 8.6 percent in February, an improvement from the 8.7 percent rate in January, according to this newspaper's analysis of the Beacon figures.

Through much of the recovery from the recession, the South Bay and San Francisco regions led in job growth, bolstered by the fast-expanding tech sector. The East Bay, ground zero for the meltdown of the housing market, has lagged.

Now, however, the East Bay has joined the upswing, which bodes well for overall economic prospects in the Bay Area. The 3,200 jobs East Bay employers added in February follow a gain of 9,400 jobs in January.

Despite the improvements, the hunt for employment remains a struggle for some job seekers.

Even the information technology sector isn't uniformly hot for job seekers. Gabriel Garcia, a San Jose resident, is finding that IT employers prefer to hire people for temporary contract jobs rather than full-time positions.

"It seems that things are picking up," Garcia said. "But it's been harder than I expected."

Despite the tough times, Newark resident Sarah Babbitt, a mother of two, is not discouraged as she seeks a job in retail or restaurant management.

"I've been looking for work for about two months," Babbitt said. "But I'm confident in my skills. I'll be able to find something."

The region is poised to produce more employment opportunities for job seekers, analysts predicted.

"The Bay Area has long-term fundamentals that are better than pretty much anywhere else in the world," Haveman said. "That is the result of the frontier economy that we have in this region."