The Bay Area suffered job losses in December, causing economic uncertainties to loom over the region as 2024 drew to a close, although California managed a modest increase in hiring last month.
The San Francisco-San Mateo region managed sturdy job gains, but the South Bay and East Bay suffered employment losses in December, the state Employment Development Department reported Friday.
California gained 15,000 jobs in December, according to the EDD. The California numbers were adjusted for seasonal changes.
The statewide unemployment rate worsened and increased to 5.5% last month, up from 5.4% in November.
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The Bay Area lost about 1,300 jobs in December, according to the report from the state EDD. The Bay Area numbers were not adjusted for seasonal volatility.
The South Bay lost 800 jobs while the East Bay shed 1,700 positions, according to the unadjusted figures from the EDD. The San Francisco-San Mateo region added 1,200 jobs, the EDD reported, the EDD reported.
For most months in 2024, the Bay Area and its three largest metro regions managed to gain jobs.
Still, some signs of weakness emerged last year.
In four of the 12 months of 2024, including December, Bay Area lost jobs amid uncertainties over federal economic policies, stubbornly persistent inflation and burdensome interest rates.
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California’s job market growth slowed dramatically during 2024, this news organization’s analysis of the EDD figures show.
During the first six months of 2024, California averaged gains of 17,600 jobs a month. But during the second-half of this year, California job growth slowed to just 12,500 jobs a month.
State EDD officials reported Friday that starting in May 2020, when the job market roared back after the initial business shutdowns arising from the coronavirus outbreak, California has averaged 57,070 jobs a month.
For all of 2024, however, California averaged only 15,000 jobs a month — a jaw-dropping plunge of 74% from the overall monthly average post-COVID job gain statewide.
California air quality officials have sued four truck manufacturers for breaching a voluntary agreement to follow the state’s nation-leading emissions rules, the state announced Tuesday.
What happened: Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office filed a complaint Monday in Alameda County Superior Court, arguing that the country’s four largest truck-makers — Daimler Truck North America, International Motors, Paccar and Volvo North America — violated an enforceable contract that they signed with the California Air Resources Board in 2023.
The lawsuit comes two months after the manufacturers filed their own complaint in federal court, arguing the agreement — known as the Clean Truck Partnership — is no longer valid after Republicans overturned California’s Advanced Clean Truck rule in June through the Congressional Review Act.
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Why it matters: The move sets up a fight to determine whether the federal system or state courts — where CARB would have a higher likelihood of prevailing — will review the case.
California, along with other states, has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Secretary Brooke Rollins for halting SNAP benefits, cutting off food aid for over 41 million Americans, according to Attorney General Rob Bonta.
About 85% of elementary schools studied in California experienced some loss of trees between 2018 and 2022, according to a paper from the University of California, Davis, published this month in the journal Urban Forestry and Urban Greening.
Members of the UC Davis Urban Science Lab found that while the average decline was less than 2%, some districts in the Central Valley — including schools with few trees to lose — lost up to a quarter of their tree cover. The most severe losses were concentrated in Tulare County, while the most notable gains were found in Imperial County.
This map, figure 2B from the study, illustrates the net change in tree canopy cover at urban school districts between 2018 and 2022. Canopy losses tended to cluster in the Central Valley and parts of Southern California. (UC Davis)
The findings are troubling as climate change will likely intensify extreme heat and drought conditions. The study underscores an urgent need to improve tree canopy in low-shade, high-need schools and to protect existing tree cover in areas facing loss.
“We are trying to measure to what extent we are exposing kids to temperatures that might be stressing their body to a level that becomes uncomfortable or dangerous,” said Alessandro Ossola, an associate professor of plant sciences who directs the Urban Science Lab at UC Davis.
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The team continued the research this past summer at elementary schools across the state, measuring tree canopies and maximum temperatures at playgrounds, basketball courts, soccer fields and other outdoor spaces.
UC Davis researchers discovered California school playgrounds are hitting a scorching 120°F heat index. Watch as they use high-tech sensors and a roving cart named MaRTyna to measure extreme heat across elementary schools. (Jael Mackendorf/UC Davis)
Tree canopies cover only about 4% to 6% of the average California school campus. That means the roughly 5.8 million K-12 public school students in California often take breaks and participate in outdoor activities under the glaring sun.
As part of the work, researchers mapped tree cover and heat over the course of a hot day at schools in inland and coastal areas of Northern and Southern California.
UC Davis student Tyler Reece Wakabayashi works with MaRTyna, a roving cart that measures information related to mean radiant temperature and other data points. (Jael Mackendorf /UC Davis)
The research is a joint effort with UC Davis, UC Berkeley and UCLA and is funded by the U.S. Forest Service and supported by the nonprofit Green Schoolyards America through its California Schoolyard Tree Canopy study.
“Most schools are actually a nature desert, which is antithetical because we know that early life exposure of humans to nature is critical for them to develop skills, improve their microbiome, become more environmentally active and so on,” Ossola said. “Trees are a hidden asset and an underutilized asset.”
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This news release is adapted from a longer article from the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Read their full feature story, “Researchers Measure Schoolyard Heat One Step at a Time.”
