Strong growth for San Francisco in 2022 set to continue in the medium-term

Although a cloud of uncertainty continues to hover over the metro, San Francisco welcomed a moderate return of tourists and saw steady growth in its tech sector in 2022. Its annual job growth rate of 5.8% exceeded the US growth of 4.1% last year. Job growth was led by restaurants, the tech sector, and other services. We forecast that San Francisco will see job growth of 3.1% in 2023 and an average job growth rate of 0.8% in 2024 through 2027, above the forecasted US rate of 0.5%.

What you will learn:

• San Francisco had GDP growth of 1.2% in 2022, lower than the US rate of 2.0% in 2022. GDP growth was led by professional and technical services and real estate. We forecast that San Francisco will withstand the threat of tech layoffs and see 2023 GDP growth of 2.1% and average annual GDP growth of 2.5% in 2024 through 2027, above the forecasted US rate of 1.8%.
• Home to Salesforce, Twitter, and a number of tech firms — many of whom have announced layoffs — San Francisco had tech job growth of 5.2% in 2022 as well as related GDP growth of 2.5%. We forecast that tech jobs will decline in the first half of 2023 but recover and grow at an annual average rate of 1.8% in 2023 through 2027.
• San Francisco saw the return of many domestic tourists. Data from Tourism Economics shows that domestic overnight visits to San Francisco in 2022 surpassed the 2019 levels, while total visitor spending has recovered 50%.