The Bay Area -- powered by robust hiring in the South Bay and the San Francisco region -- is likely to remain an employment engine despite nationwide jobs trends that increasingly have turned ominous.
"What the Bay Area produces is what is hot in the economy today," said Christopher Thornberg, an economist with Beacon Economics. "Business investments are doing well. Technology is doing great."
Some regions of the Bay Area are likely to outperform others, though, with tech-heavy areas in the lead.
"The South Bay and the San Francisco and Peninsula areas will likely outpace the nation and do well this year," said Jon Haveman, chief economist with the Bay Area Council's Economic Institute. "The East Bay and the North Bay are more likely to track at the national pace."
In the most recent 12 months for which statistics are available, the Bay Area has outpaced the nation in job growth. Bay Area payroll jobs have increased by 2.4 percent, while the United States is up 1.4 percent. The South Bay has the fastest job growth of any region in the nation, with a 3.4 percent increase.
The San Francisco-San Mateo-Marin region is up 3.1 percent in payroll jobs, while the East Bay is up 0.9 percent.
But the pace of Bay Area job growth has begun to slow. Over the first five months of this year, area employers added about 8,500 jobs a month, a steep decline from the average 10,400 jobs added monthly in the final five months of 2011.
"At some point, what is happening nationally could become a drag on the Bay Area," Haveman said.
In two weeks, state officials will release the June jobs report for California, including the Bay Area and other metro regions. Despite the recent slowdown in the pace of job creation, Thornberg said the Bay Area is unlikely to suffer actual job losses in the foreseeable future.
"We see no pervasive threats to the job growth we have been seeing in the region," he said.
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