East Bay job market rises to the top

East Bay job market rises to the top: "




Posted on Tue, Oct. 17, 2006


East Bay job market rises to the top
'Contrarian' region climbs from lowest position in state Employment Development Department study
By George Avalos
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

Propelled by a remarkable rebound in the East Bay's job market, the Bay Area no longer languishes in California's economic cellar, according to a new report.

The dot-com meltdown and a retreat in the telecommunications industry, exacerbated by a national recession and the aftershocks of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, all conspired to erase jobs at a scary pace in the Bay Area.

For a time, the nine-county region was the nation's weakest job market. By some measures, the Silicon Valley employment losses of the late 1990s and early 2000s were the worst since World War II.

Those dismal years have yielded to more robust economic times, a study by San Francisco-based Union Bank suggests.

'Job growth in the Bay Area has pretty much caught up with California, and the East Bay has performed extremely well,' said Keitaro Matsuda, an economist with Union Bank. 'Job growth in the East Bay is well above the average for California.'

Even more striking, this turnaround has emerged just in the past year. Over that period, the"