Good news came in the form of data from March on job creation, tourism, housing, office attendance and among other indicators, new business formation.
But San Francisco's chief economist Ted Egan said the city still had a long way to go to rebound from the pandemic, saying: "Our job creation, tourism, and housing are all moving in the right direction. But they are still well below where we were before the pandemic, and far behind where comparable cities are."
The San Francisco metro area added more than 12-thousand jobs in February – more than half of which was in the leisure and hospitality sector, a sector hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. Unemployment was at three percent, the lowest rate for the pandemic era.
The number of housing units permitted jumped again. San Francisco permitted about 325 units in January, up from fewer than 200 in October and fewer than 50 in November 2020.
Local travel is recovering but residents are still cautious about getting out, according to the controller's office. Weekly hotel occupancy topped 50 percent in mid-March in San Francisco, only the second time that's happened since the pandemic began.
