Aerial: flying over Menlo Park suburb looking out to Palo Alto in Silicon Valley at sunset. 19th April 2018
Silicon Valley's unemployment rate increased by 3.2 percent in January due in part to a drop in seasonal employment and a significant spike in COVID-19 cases that occurred before the holidays.
Employers in Silicon Valley cut nearly 13,400 workers between mid-December and mid-January, according to Robin Doran, a spokesperson for Joint Venture Silicon Valley. That decline represents more than half of the job gains experienced between mid-October and mid-December of last year.
The region -- identified as Santa Clara County and the southern portions of Alameda and San Mateo counties -- saw the total number of unemployed workers rise to 47,500 by mid-January, representing a decrease of nearly 5,000 since mid-December.
Total employment in the region is up nearly 171,000 since April 2020, and the initial job losses associated with the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Joint Venture Silicon Valley, this represents job growth of 13.5 percent over that nine-month period.
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The January unemployment rate in Silicon Valley was 2.5 percentage points lower than in January 2021, and 8.8 percentage points lower than April 2020.
