Bay Area Economy Getting Stronger

The Bay Area’s Economic Future Looking a Bit Brighter!

As one of the Bay Area’s largest construction firms, Webcor Builders provides a handy barometer of the region’s economic vitality.

The San Francisco company’s workforce, which topped 2,200 in 2008, has shrunk to about 1,200. But this year it plans to add about 500 workers, primarily skilled union tradespeople – many of the same folks who’ve been languishing on unemployment since the housing collapse and economic downturn began several years ago.

“Bottom line, 2012 will be a good year,” said Webcor CEO Andy Ball. “We had some economic recovery in 2011 but didn’t see the benefits of it. We started hiring within the past six months and definitely will continue to add jobs.”

Local companies across a range of industries sound a similar refrain: They are cautiously optimistic about this year’s economic prospects. And economists concur that the Bay Area is likely to experience moderate growth that outpaces that of the state and the nation – particularly good news, given Friday’s report of 200,000 jobs created in December nationally.”

“Overall for the Bay Area, I expect continued progress, somewhat faster than we saw in 2011,” said Jon Haveman, chief economist at the Bay Area Council. “It’s going to be uneven as it has been for at least the past year. There’s nothing out there that shows the economy ready to roar back again – except in the tech sector, which is booming.”

But this year, technology’s rising tide could boost other industries.

“The recovery will broaden a bit in 2012; it was narrowly concentrated in technology in 2011,” said Stephen Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy. “The tech surge is so large that the income generated there will spread to other sectors. That’s traditionally what happens once your leading growth sector gets going fast enough.”

The complete article is here:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/08/MNRS1MLRTK.DTL&tsp=1

Social Media Fuels SoMa Real Estate

“The high-tech industry is a bright spot in an otherwise gray economic picture. High-tech jobs have grown nearly four times faster than the overall economy during the past 18 months,” a report by real estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle noted.

Over that same period, tech job growth in San Francisco surged by 16.1 percent — the fastest of any area in the country, according to the report. That’s one and a half times the rate in Silicon Valley during the past year and a half — and growth has been the largest in SoMa. If tech is one of the most resilient parts of the U.S. economy, the strongest part of tech is in SoMa.

These jobs are largely generated by eager young companies champing at the bit to become the next Google or Microsoft, and they all need somewhere to house their employees.

In October, the real estate firm Colliers International released a report that found 40 tech companies were looking for approximately two million square feet of office space in San Francisco, primarily in SoMa. Mayor Ed Lee noted that the space they were seeking to fill was “[the] equivalent of nearly four Transamerica Pyramids.”

Read more here:  Social Media Fuels SoMa Rental Boom

Ride Muni Free on New Year’s Eve

All Muni lines and routes are free to ride tonight from 8pm to 6am. So if you are planning a night in the city – maybe taking in the fireworks show from Pier 14 at the stroke of midnight – leave the driving to Muni. Be safe & Happy New Year!