Unemployment in the city of San Francisco, August 2026
4.2% of the city of San Francisco’s labor force was unemployed in August 2026, against 4.5% a year earlier. Across the whole metro area the rate was 4.6% in August 2026. The city’s highest rate in this record was 14.0%, in April 2020.
The city had 499,080 people in its labor force — working or looking for work, against 506,564 a year earlier.
Neither figure is seasonally adjusted — BLS publishes city estimates no other way — so compare a month with the same month a year earlier. The city figures are modelled by BLS from the metro and county estimates and revised each March.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Local Area Unemployment Statistics, San Francisco city and the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont metro area. Auto-generated each build.