SAN FRANCISCO—Mayor Edwin Lee issued a statement on Thursday, January 18 indicating that the city’s unemployment rate has dropped to 6.5 percent in December 2012 for the San Francisco County, the city’s lowest rate since 2008. This information is based on early estimates based on unemployment numbers released by the State Employment Development Department (EDD).
“When I first came into office in January 2011, San Francisco’s unemployment rate was 9.6 percent; today it was announced that for the month of December 2012, it was 6.5 percent, the lowest unemployment rate since 2008. It’s a new year and we are experiencing a consistent improvement in our economy, yet we will not rest for the 30,900 San Franciscans who are still unemployed. I will continue to work with every business sector in the City to make sure we continue to support policies that grow jobs and put San Franciscans back to work,” said Mayor Lee in a statement.
The county has the third lowest unemployment rate amongst California’s 58 counties as of last month. Employment opportunities in San Francisco County increased by 4.3 percent on a year-over basis as of the second quarter of 2012, according to numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That information gave the county a ranking of 15th compared to 329 of the largest counties in the nation and represented a year-over job growth of over 26,000 jobs.
By LaDale Anderson
