Silicon Valley's Unemployment Rate Declines

SILICON VALLEY, CA — Silicon Valley's unemployment rate, which increased last year as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, is declining.

The Joint Venture Silicon Valley's Institute for Regional Studies, a San Jose economic research organization, released an analysis Friday on unemployment rates in Silicon Valley.

The data reflects month over month employment trends in retail stores, social assistance and health care services and restaurants and food services.

Silicon Valley's unemployment rate declined from 6 percent in December to 5.1 percent in March. The unemployment rate for the Bay Area is 5.8 percent and 8.2 percent statewide.

The 5.1 percent figure remains higher than the 3.2 percent unemployment rate in mid-March last year.

"The region is on a slow path to recovery," Rachel Massaro, the institute's director of research said in a Friday statement. "It's still unclear what that recovery will look like on an industry-by-industry basis. Food service jobs, for instance, are gradually increasing; yet, the industry overall barely has half the jobs it had prior to the pandemic."

California's unemployment rate for March 2021 is 8.2 percent, the fourth highest among all states.

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