County Loses Thousands of Jobs in 2009

County officials gathered in Millbrae Wednesday morning to discuss a report released today that shows a loss of about 21,000 jobs in San Mateo County in 2009.

The annual report, released by Sustainable San Mateo County, a nonprofit that monitors economic and social trends in the county, found that manufacturing and professional services were the most severely impacted, reporting a 15 and 7 percent loss, respectively.

However, the mood was optimistic as officials pointed to several signs of a recovery since the 2009 data.

“What we’re seeing now is that large employers are more relaxed, and they’re looking to hire again,” said Redwood City Councilwoman Rosanne Foust. 

She said that a Sustainable San Mateo County survey showed that about a third of businesses are planning to increase their workforce in the next few months.

"The demand [for employment] is still extremely high right now," said Sharon Williams, executive director of JobTrain, a nonprofit employment agency and training center.

The unemployment rate dropped from 9.4 to 8.4 percent from March 2010 to March 2011, according to the California Employment Development Department.

Additionally, the average weekly wage for a worker in San Mateo County increased to $1,471 in 2009, after stagnating at $1,300 for the previous two years.

“We’re also seeing a drop in commercial vacancy rates,” Foust said.

However, although every job sector is expected to grow, the total number of jobs in the county in 2016 will still be below the 2001 peak, according to the report.

Rafael Reyes, a board member of Sustainable San Mateo County, stressed the need for collaboration between cities in the county to accelerate green job growth.

For example, local governments saved about 12 percent on their transaction costs recently, when several cities in the Peninsula collaborated to buy solar panels for their municipal facilities, according to Reyes.

Although solar panel projects proliferated in the last decade, the number of installations in the county last year was about half of the 2007 peak of 3,000. 

Reyes thinks cities should step up their efforts to decrease dependency on oil.

Combined, drivers in San Mateo County consume about 329 million gallons of gasoline per year, according to the California Department of Transportation. 

“That’s about $1.3 billion a year. That’s money directly coming out of people’s pockets, and almost all of it is going abroad,” Reyes said.

This summer, Sustainable San Mateo will conduct a study on the growth and decline of companies in the county between 1992 and 2009 to determine the need for job training programs in specific segments.