State squares job loss numbers with reality
S.F. area miscounted by 150%, San Jose by 54%

“Condensed version" taken from Sam Zuckerman, San Francisco Chronicle, March 1, 2003:


In the two years ending in December 2002, the San Jose area lost 149,200 jobs, 54 percent more than previously thought. The San Francisco area shed 92, 900 jobs during that period, a stunning 150 percent more than previous estimates.

Based on the revisions, Bazdarich calculates that Santa Clara County lost 18.4 percent of its jobs in the last two years. Or from another perspective, half of the state's total job losses occurred in the San Jose region.

"Data for Santa Clara do look really horrible," he said. An area representing about 8 percent of the state's economy, it suffered 50 percent of the state's job losses in the last two years.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/03/01/MN14445.DTL


***********************************************************************

Employment in the San Francisco Bay Area is a serious issue. Ten years ago electronics manufacturing took a hit and we lost 60,000 electronics engineering jobs. Now it is the IT industry that is hurting, with 127,000 lost jobs from companies that no longer exist. The number of lost jobs is actually greater as many little companies were not included.

Housing vacancies are at an all time high of over 8%. The good news is that people are still buying houses. The bad news is that foreclosures are at an all time high. It is hard to make those $4000 a month payments for a typical 1200 square foot house, if you or your spouse looses your job.

Several of my frients who are IT professionals have not worked in two years or more.