When it comes to post-pandemic recovery, the North Bay is lagging the nation and the rest of the Bay Area in job growth.

That was one of the perspectives presented during the Bay Area Economic Institute’s virtual State of the North Bay presentation on Oct. 23.. The institute is a business advocacy organization representing the nine-county Bay Area. Counties include Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano and Sonoma. The report, which highlighted data analyzes in the Bay Area and separately for the North Bay, was sponsored by the North Bay Leadership Council.

According to keynote speaker, institute executive director Jeff Bellisario, employment growth in North Bay between February 2020 and September 2024 was 1%, compared to 4.5% nationally. California’s economic barometer was 2.49%, while the rest of the Bay Area was 1.2%.

“We have seen a general slowdown in the Bay Area, and North Bay is experiencing a slower recovery (since the COVID-19 outbreak) than the San Francisco metro and San Jose markets,” Bellisario said. “Over the last four years, we’ve been trying to catch up with the rest of the country again. »

In the meantime, unemployment rate had fallen in the six-county North Bay region in September, while California’s rate of 5.3% remained the same, according to the state’s Employment Development Department on Oct. 18.

What this tells Sonoma State University economics professor Robert Eyler is that the two factors are colliding due to the actions of employers.

“It could be that more employers are simply reducing the number of workers they require,” Eyler told the Business Journal on Nov. 4. “It’s certainly one way to deal with increasing expenses.”

And studies from one year to the next can lead to a completely different result than an assessment over a long period like that of the report published by the institute on October 23.

For example, Eyler noted that September unemployment rates, as reported in the Business Journal, are only a snapshot.

“Unemployment in Sonoma County has remained stable, but has increased by half a percent since May. It is increasing,” he said, adding that seasonal adjustments must also be taken into account during a long-term analysis.

The economic slowdown in employment contrasts with when Bellisario said the Bay Area was “at the top of the rankings” in terms of job creation.

Bellasario outlined trends toward recognizing the “uniqueness” of North Bay counties and how they could use that information to plan a period of rebuilding and redevelopment.

Santa Rosa City Manager Maraskeshia Smith, accompanied by the city’s Economic Development Director Scott Adair, was in attendance at the event, along with San Rafael City Manager Christine Alilovich and San Rafael’s Economic Development Director Napa, Neal Harrison, to discuss the state of their local city’s economy.

Three North Bay counties saw education and health services lead in terms of industries and employment: Sonoma with 36,045 jobs in these sectors and Marin with 21,300 in these employment divisions. Napa County had 10,224 jobs in education and health services. The county had 14,446 manufacturing jobs and 12,491 leisure/hospitality jobs in 2024, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Over the same four-year period of employment recovery, the construction sector has seen little change overall. Employment sectors, including information; wholesale, transportation and utilities; financial; retail and government saw overall job losses. Collectively, trade/transportation (down 6.9%, 2019-2024), finance, leisure/hospitality, manufacturing and construction lost 9,678 jobs in North Bay, the report said.

The aging population represents a trend to watch in terms of workforce retention, experts say. Seniors are approaching retirement and leaving the job market.

The North Bay’s median age increased by 3.6 years between 2010 and 2023. In Sonoma County, the median age is 43.5; Napa’s is 43.4 years old and Marin’s is 48 years old.

Bellasario said he has also noticed a trend of millennials leaving the area. The region’s population was 830,000 in 2010, referring to Sonoma, Napa and Marin counties in the North Bay. That figure peaked six years later at around 910,000, but fell to 869,054 last year. The United States Census Bureau reported the figure at 869,435.

Furthermore, these data coincide with a decline in the net birth rate. North Bay saw more than 6,000 people leave the area last year and a “near zero” net birth rate.

“These demographic trends are not good. There are more people leaving than entering. We are in a very negative migration situation. If you don’t increase your population, you don’t increase your workforce,” Bellasario said. Along with the pandemic playing a role in population displacement, natural disasters including wildfires, housing affordability and overall cost of living have contributed to people leaving.