Jobs in San Francisco, California

San Francisco Overview

The San Francisco job market is rebuilding after taking a dip caused primarily by a contraction in business, real estate and government. After rebounding from the dot-com crash and now the recession, the area’s 2.2 million workers, who are accustomed to managing through slow markets, anticipate a promising recovery.

San Francisco Job Opportunities

San Francisco differentiates itself with an educated workforce, lofty standard of living, steep real estate prices and correspondingly high salaries. San Francisco employment is fueled by technology companies, along with financial services, professional services, biotech/biomedical and apparel employers. Education is also a key sector, with the University of California, San Francisco one of the region’s largest employers.

Employment in San Francisco is led by the professional/business services sector, followed by trade, transportation and utilities. Several sectors, including professional/business services, leisure and hospitality, information services and other services have reported strong year-over-year percentage job expansion, while the government, manufacturing and financial activities sectors have reported recent employment declines.

San Francisco Employment Trends

As a measure of the employment challenges San Francisco has faced, the city’s unemployment rate peaked at a steep 10.7 percent in January 2010. Employment conditions have since improved, with the unemployment rate falling to 8.2 percent in May 2012. Payroll employment declined for nearly two-and-a-half years before finally strengthening in late 2011 and early 2012. Online hiring has improved, but is still low relative to prerecession levels.

Moody’s Analytics forecasts San Francisco jobs will increase 2 percent between Q2 2012 and Q2 2013, more than the 1.3 percent increase expected in the US job supply.