Although California managed a modest increase in hiring last month, the Bay Area suffered job losses in December, leaving economic uncertainties looming over the region as 2024 drew to a close, according to the newest data.

Overall, the Bay Area lost 1,500 jobs in December, the state Employment Development Department reported Friday. Those numbers were not adjusted for seasonal volatility.

The South Bay lost 800 jobs, while the East Bay shed 1,700 positions, according to unadjusted figures from the EDD. Meanwhile, the San Francisco-San Mateo region added 1,200 jobs.

Adjusted for seasonal changes, California gained 15,000 jobs in December, according to the EDD. However, the statewide unemployment rate increased to 5.5%, up from 5.4% in November.

Crucially, the California jobs and unemployment numbers do not yet include the likely negative effects on workers and businesses caused by fires that scorched huge swaths of Los Angeles County in recent weeks.

“The impact of the fires on the unemployment rate and payroll job totals will not be known for a couple of months,” said Michael Bernick, an employment attorney with law firm Duane Morris and a former EDD director. “The next January jobs report will cover only the period including Jan. 12, which involved only the first days of the fires.”

The deadly fires destroyed homes as well as businesses as the flames tore through several communities.

“Initial estimates are that 15,000 to 20,000 jobs might be either halted or have hours significantly reduced,” Bernick said.

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, the state averaged gains of 17,600 jobs a month. But during the second-half of this year, job growth slowed to just 12,500 jobs a month.

State EDD officials reported Friday that starting in May of 2020, California has averaged 57,070 jobs a month. For all of 2024, however, California averaged only 15,000 jobs a month — a plunge of 74% from the overall monthly average post-COVID job gain statewide.

“What matters going forward is how the new administration implements their immigration, deportation, tariff and deficit, debt and tax policies, all of which could harm the Bay Area economy,” said Steve Levy, director of the Palo Alto-based Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy.

The Bay Area job market has been battling against some significant headwinds, primarily those unleashed by job losses in the tech sector.

In 2024, tech companies eliminated about 18,000 jobs in the Bay Area, according to this news organization’s review of WARN notices on file with the state EDD.

While the tech layoffs in the Bay Area during 2024 were significant, that number is nevertheless 16.7% below the approximate 21,600 jobs that the tech industry slashed in the nine-county region in 2023, the EDD WARN notices show.

What’s more, tech companies have hired workers in growing areas such as AI while at the same time dismissing workers in less-promising sectors.

Whether there are any “bright spots in tech” will have a crucial influence on the Bay Area job market, Levy said.

Russell Hancock, president of San Jose-based think tank Joint Venture Silicon Valley, said the resilience in the region’s economy has impressed him.

“There are all kinds of downward pressures out there — political instability, inflation, market saturation, interest rates — and yet our regional economy mostly defies gravity,” Hancock said. “I suspect we’re going to be a slow-growing economy for a while. Slow, but growing.”