The Bay Area and California both posted robust job gains in November that represented rebounds from months of feeble hiring trends marred by waves of employment losses, a new federal report released Wednesday shows.

The report, delayed by a weeks-long government shutdown, revealed that the Bay Area gained 4,800 jobs in November, snapping six consecutive months of employment losses for the region, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

California added 32,500 jobs in November on the heels of a puny gain of 1,500 jobs in October, the federal agency reported.

“The Bay Area and California economies showed encouraging signs of labor market stabilization in November,” said Scott Anderson, chief U.S. economist for BMO Capital Markets.

The statewide unemployment rate was 5.5% in November. The government didn’t report an October jobless rate figure due to the timing of the federal shutdown. The California unemployment rate was 5.6% in September.

“A convincing return to net job growth and the first tick down in the state unemployment rate since March provided some tangible reasons for optimism,” Anderson said.

California, however, has the ominous distinction of posting the nation’s highest unemployment rate. New Jersey has the next-highest jobless rate at 5.4%. California also is only one of five states with a jobless rate of 5% or higher.

The South Bay gained 400 jobs in November. The upswing ended four consecutive months of job losses for that region.

The East Bay added 2,400 jobs in November, marking the third straight month of employment increases for the Alameda County-Contra Costa County region. The East Bay had lost jobs for four straight months from May through August.

The San Francisco-San Mateo region gained 2,700 jobs in November on the heels of an increase of 1,100 positions in October.

Despite the gains in November, the first 11 months of 2025 were dismal for the Bay Area and California.

From January through November, California lost 7,500 jobs while the Bay Area shed 21,300 positions.

“The Bay Area is basically a cocktail of multiple interacting forces, which is keeping our economy stationary right now and for the foreseeable future,” said Russell Hancock, president of Joint Venture Silicon Valley, a San Jose-based think tank. “There’s nothing wrong with that. It beats the alternative.”

The three largest urban sectors in the Bay Area also suffered a sour January-through-November job market.

Over the first 11 months of 2025, the South Bay shed 9,200 jobs, the East Bay lost 6,600 positions, and the San Francisco-San Mateo region suffered a decline of 3,300 jobs.

“We would need to see a string of improved monthly job growth numbers to materially lift our 2026 economic outlook for California and the Bay Area,” Anderson said.

The Bay Area’s decades-long role as the primary engine of California’s economy appears to have dwindled, warned Michael Bernick, an employment attorney with law firm Duane Morris and a former director of California’s labor agency.

For most of the time since the early 2000s, the Bay Area has powered the state’s job growth, with an outsized number of the new jobs,” Bernick said. “In the post-pandemic period, the Bay Area’s job contribution has decreased.”

This unsettling pattern for the Bay Area emerged again during November, according to Bernick. Plus, for the first 11 months of 2025, the Bay Area actually lost nearly three times as many jobs as did California over the same period.

“The Bay Area, with 3.9 million jobs, has around 21% of the state’s total,” Bernick said. “Yet, in November, the Bay Area contributed only 13.7% of the state job gains.”

The job markets in California and the Bay Area have posted far weaker performances than is the case nationwide.

Over the one-year period that ended in November, nonfarm payroll job totals grew 0.6% in the United States but only by 0.2% in California. Put another way, the U.S. job market is growing three times faster than California’s employment sector.

The comparisons are even more bleak for the Bay Area. Job totals fell 0.5% in the Bay Area and the East Bay, declined by 0.7% in the South Bay, and dropped 0.4% in the San Francisco-San Mateo region over the year-long period ending in November.

The tech industry remains in a cautious state and appears reluctant to hire workers in a big way. This is in sharp contrast to the tech sector’s hyper job growth after the coronavirus outbreak fueled demand for tech services to enable remote work.

“At the front end of 2025, folks were still right-sizing after the pandemic, at which point our major employers shifted into efficiency mode,” Hancock said.

Plus, tech companies began to chase potential opportunities arising from cutting-edge industries that are in their fledgling years.

“Into all of that you introduce artificial intelligence, which adds jobs in one place and subtracts them from another,” Hancock said. “AI is growing, and is creating opportunity and profitability, but it looks to be a wash on the job front.”

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