Bay Area job market to top U.S., California

The Bay Area job market should expand more quickly than California and the nation over the next two years, primarily because of solid employment growth in the San Jose and San Francisco area, although the Oakland area should expand as well, a report released Thursday shows.

During 2013 and 2014, job totals in the Bay Area should expand by 7.2 percent, the Bay Area Council’s Economic Institute reported.

The only job losses expected in the Bay Area over the two years will come from local, state and federal government agencies, the report predicted.

Ellis Partners buys East Bay buildings

Ellis Partners has bought two office buildings in Livermore and one in Pleasanton in separate transactions, the realty investor and developer said Thursday.

San Francisco-based Ellis bought a 145,000-square-foot, two-building office campus just north of Interstate 580 on North Canyons Parkway in Livermore. The deal for the two buildings, known as North Canyons Tech Park, was arranged through realty brokerage HFF.

Ellis also bought a 64,000-square-foot office building known as Franklin Corporate Center, located at 5100 Franklin Drive in Pleasanton. The deal was arranged by commercial realty firm Colliers International. Ellis will undertake a major renovation of the Pleasanton building, including new lobbies.

LightSail

captures $37 million in VC cash

Berkeley-based LightSail Energy, a developer of new technologies for energy storage, has landed $37.3 million in Series D venture capital financing.

Investors Bill Gates, Peter Thiel, Khosla Ventures, and Innovacorp were among the notable financiers that participated in the venture funding round.

Founded in 2009, LightSail Energy has developed technologies to make renewable energy such as solar and wind power available at times when the power is needed, rather than only when they are available. LightSail’s storage system enables solar farms to store energy cheaply, then deliver the power when it’s needed.

— Staff

Article source: http://www.insidebayarea.com/business/ci_21960946/biz-buzz

The current economic boom will be robust enough for the South Bay to recover the jobs it lost during the recession by 2014 — but the East Bay and the San Francisco metro regions might need until at least 2015, the chief economist with the Bay Area Council Economic Institute said Wednesday.

“Every industry in the South Bay is growing except for construction and retail,” said Jon Haveman. “The East Bay is very much hurting, and it may continue to do so for a while.”

Haveman gave his divergent outlooks at a downtown Oakland conference sponsored by Torrey Pines Bank.

One big reason for the differing paces of recovery is that the East Bay tumbled into a much deeper economic abyss, an analysis of state Employment Development Department figures shows.

Since payroll employment peaked in the East Bay in August 2007, it has lost about 105,000 jobs. In contrast, the South Bay’s employment peak came in March 2008, and it has since lost about 38,000 jobs. The San Francisco-San Mateo-Marin region peaked in July 2008, and since then has shed 47,000 jobs.

The East Bay remains 10.2 percent below its peak employment levels, while the San Francisco area is down 5.5 percent and the South Bay is down 4.5 percent. California overall is down 6.7 percent.

“The South Bay will come through this like a champ and get back to the peak pretty quick,” said Brad Kemp, an economist with Beacon Economics. “The San Francisco area is close behind. The

East Bay has had almost no recovery whatsoever.”

The sheer number of lost jobs and the duration of the downturn aren’t the only challenges to confront the Alameda County-Contra Costa County region. It also is limited in the kinds of jobs it can create.

The South Bay’s tech sector offers an array of products and services in high demand among consumers and companies alike. But Haveman noted that the East Bay “doesn’t have that sector to drive a recovery.”

“For the East Bay, the real issue is the area’s economy is being redefined,” Kemp said. “Who is it? What is it? That’s what the East Bay is trying to find out.”

The East Bay depended heavily on residential construction and an upswing in the mortgage industry to fuel its employment growth a few years ago. The housing meltdown most likely erased those jobs permanently.

Also, the shutdowns of two big factories in Fremont underscore the uncertainty. The closure of the NUMMI auto plant in April 2010 erased 4,700 jobs. Tesla Motors (TSLA) has taken over the plant and plans to build its all-electric Model S there, but it remains unclear how many jobs that will create. Meanwhile, solar maker Solyndra’s shutdown in August 2011 jettisoned 1,100 jobs.

Edward Del Beccaro, managing director for the Walnut Creek office of realty brokerage Grubb Ellis, said promising trends in the Bay Area for 2012 include Silicon Valley’s tech economy, apartment construction and commercial real estate activity. The weakest sector, he said, is single-family residential construction.

The best hope for an East Bay economic upswing may be to capture overflow tenants from its neighbors.

“Tech companies are filling spaces in the South Bay and rents are rising,” Del Beccaro said. “As office rents rise in San Francisco and Santa Clara County, you will see some companies migrate to the East Bay.”

Contact George Avalos at 925-977-8477. Follow him at twitter.com/george_avalos.

East Bay

-105,000

Estimated number of jobs lost since its hiring peak in August 2007

South Bay

-38,000

Estimated job loss since employment peaked in March 2008

West Bay/North Bay

-47,000

Estimated job loss since hiring peaked in July 2008

Article source: http://www.mercurynews.com/real-estate/ci_19821751

High-tech job growth has sparked the Bay Area’s rebound from the recession, but experts warn that the region’s economy could stall unless other industries start to hire.

Over the first nine months of 2011, the technology industry added 26,200 workers, 65 percent of all the jobs created in the Bay Area, this newspaper’s analysis of data compiled by state officials and Beacon Economics shows. High-tech jobs account for 18 percent of the Bay Area’s workforce.

“If the Bay Area jobs recovery doesn’t broaden, it is in danger of fizzling out completely,” said Scott Anderson, senior economist with Wells Fargo Bank.

The key, according to a number of economists, would be a recovery in the long-troubled housing industry.

“We need a normal housing market,” said Jeffrey Michael, director of the Business Forecasting Center at University of the Pacific in Stockton. “We have to have a construction industry that has a pulse.”

Much in the way the financial industry bolsters New York City’s economy, real estate is an economic bulwark for the Bay Area. Real estate and high-tech produce strong ripple effects throughout the economy, creating many jobs in many industries.

“Technology workers are more likely to buy a home, make home improvements or go to the spa,” said Jon Haveman, chief economist with the Bay Area Council’s Economic Institute. “They will dine out more often. They spend more at the mall.”

Much the same is true with the

housing industry. Rising demand spurs construction of new homes and apartments. Newly purchased houses are filled with furniture, often new. Backyards receive upgrades, with the help of frequent trips to the hardware store or garden supply shop. Mortgage providers hire loan agents. Commissions for real estate agents swell. Those virtuous cycles vanished when the housing bubble popped.

The employment gains in the Bay Area housing sector during the peak year of 2005, compared with now, illustrate the problem. In the first nine months of 2011, Bay Area construction companies added 3,200 jobs. Over the first nine months of 2005, construction gained 4,700 jobs. The difference is akin to a Solyndra solar plant. The contrast is even starker in the finance, insurance and real estate sectors, which have numerous jobs linked to housing. In the first nine months of 2011, Bay Area financial businesses shed 1,500 jobs. During the same nine months of 2005, financial companies added 3,100 jobs. That 4,600-job swing equates to a NUMMI factory.

“We don’t need construction to go all the way back to the 2005 levels,” Michael said. “But it has to get off the floor, to improve from these abnormally low levels.”

For now, the thousands of new jobs in construction are a welcome sign.

“Things are looking a little better,” Brent Judd, a project supervisor for Tilton Pacific, said of local construction activity. “It’s not dramatic. But things have stabilized.”

Tilton Pacific is the general contractor for a new shopping center in Pleasanton that will be anchored by a big Safeway store. Joining construction in the upswing are transportation and warehousing, which gained 9,500 jobs, and retail, which added 2,300 jobs. Even the battered manufacturing sector rose by 3,900 jobs.

“We are hiring people all the time,” said Nathan Tyson, an engineer at Chevron’s refinery in Richmond.

He started a few years ago as a tank turnaround engineer for the Richmond refinery. He now works as a design engineer at the plant.

The improvement in retail is significant because it reflects a stronger job market in other sectors. If residents are working, they are more likely to shop. New entrants into the supermarket sector, coupled with Safeway’s store expansions and revamps, also may have spurred some hiring.

Fresh Easy and Sprouts Farmers Markets have been opening new stores. REI opened a new store in Dublin. Auto dealers have been growing. Whole Foods and Sunflower Farmers Markets have announced, or recently opened, new stores in the Bay Area.

Safeway held a jobs fair recently for its new Pleasanton store. The supermarket estimated that 600 people showed up in person and 1,000 applied online.

“We ended up hiring 240 employees,” said Susan Houghton, a spokeswoman for Safeway.

Despite the hopeful signs, weaknesses persist in the Bay Area — meaning it will take years to fully recover. Arts and entertainment, hotels and dining and beverage establishments, along with government, have shed jobs lately.

“It’s going to take a certain amount of time to bleed off the excess debt in the economy because of the credit and housing bubbles,” said Michael Yoshikami, chief investment officer with Walnut Creek-based YCMNet. “We won’t see a meaningful jobs rebound for a few years.”

Contact George Avalos at 925-977-8477. Follow him at twitter.com/george_avalos.

Article source: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_19229328