California and Silicon Valley Unemployment Rate Numbers

Numbers today came out for the national unemployment rate, and it is no surprise that the numbers continue to rise. The national rate now stands at 6.1%, a five-year high. These numbers don’t tell us much about California and Silicon Valley, so the graph to the right and data below represent the trends for the state and Silicon Valley.

The EDD, doesn’t have a statistic for “Silicon Valley”, but the data they have available on the San Jose-Santa Clara-Sunnyvale Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) is sufficiently representative of Silicon Valley, particularly when you are working to contrast the numbers with commercial real estate as these three cities represent three of the larger office markets in Silicon Valley.

In Silicon Valley, the unemployment rate for July 2008 came in at 6.4%, up 30 basis points from June’s 6.1% number, and has been steadily climbing since late last year.

Some historical unemployment numbers for the month of July over the past several years are as follows.

2008 - 6.4%
2007 - 5.1%
2006 - 4.9%
2005 - 5.6%
2004 - 6.7%
2003 - 8.7%
2002 - 8.5%
2001 - 5.4%
2000 - 3.5%
1999 - 3.4%
1998 - 3.7%
1997 - 3.5%
1996 - 4.0%

Similar Posts:

• 533K Layoffs Nationwide in November; California, Silicon Valley Unemployment Rate Update
• Unemployment Rate Darts to 6.5%; Up 40BP from September
• September 2008 Unemployment Numbers
• Unemployment Rate Update
• California Unemployment Rate Up 150 Basis Points Year Over Year

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