San Francisco has seen a major shift in its employment picture, bringing some relief to workers after years of uncertainty. New data shows that the city recorded far fewer layoffs in 2025 compared to earlier post-pandemic years. This marks the second year in a row that job losses have declined, signaling a period of relative stability for a city that was once at the center of massive workforce cuts.
The improvement is significant when compared to the sharp downturn experienced just two years ago. While challenges remain for many families, the lower layoff numbers suggest that the pace of job losses has slowed across several industries. For a city known for high living costs, even small signs of stability can make a big difference in daily life.
A Sharp Drop in Layoffs Compared to 2023
According to figures tracked by the San Francisco Office of Economic and Workforce Development, the city recorded around 3,860 layoffs in 2025. This is a steep decline from 2023, when layoffs reached approximately 10,200 during a period of intense cuts, especially in the technology sector.
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The numbers come from WARN filings, which are official notices that employers must submit when laying off more than 50 workers or closing a facility. These filings do not capture every single job loss, but they provide a strong picture of large-scale layoffs across the city. The data was also cross-checked with WARN reports from the California Employment Development Department to ensure accuracy.
In 2024, the city had already seen improvement, with about 5,500 layoffs recorded. The drop to 3,860 in 2025 represents an improvement of roughly 30% in just one year. In fact, fewer people lost their jobs in all of 2025 than in the first three months of 2023 alone, highlighting how intense the earlier period of layoffs had been.
Despite the improvement, the numbers still represent thousands of workers whose lives were disrupted. Many households continue to face high rent, rising child care costs, and everyday expenses that make job loss especially hard in San Francisco.
Impact on Workers Across Retail, Services, and Tech
Even with fewer overall layoffs, the impact on workers and communities was still serious in 2025. Several well-known employers reduced staff or shut down operations, affecting hundreds of people.
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Retail and service workers were among those hit. Store closures by Walgreens led to the loss of hundreds of jobs across the city. A major workforce reduction at Goodwill left some clients without staff to assist them, disrupting services many residents depend on. In another case, the Mental Health Association of San Francisco laid off nearly two-thirds of its staff, including dozens of counselors, creating gaps in mental health support.
Retail closures also continued downtown. The shutdown of a large Bloomingdale’s location at the San Francisco Centre mall resulted in more than 150 people losing their jobs. This closure was part of a wider exit of stores from the Fifth and Market streets area, a zone that has struggled with reduced foot traffic since the pandemic.
The technology sector, while not cutting jobs at the same pace as in 2023, still saw notable layoffs. Companies affected included Autodesk, Salesforce, 23andMe, Amazon, Juni Learning, Handshake, Asana, Niantic, Cisco, LinkedIn, Okta, and Zendesk.
One of the most dramatic cases involved Cruise, which carried out repeated rounds of layoffs, including one cut affecting 649 workers, as the company shut down operations entirely.
Employment Trends and Industry Shifts in the City
While layoffs declined, San Francisco’s unemployment rate has remained relatively steady. Data from the Federal Reserve shows that the city’s unemployment rate stood at 4.2% in September, close to the national rate recorded in December. This suggests that, even with slower job growth, the labor market has not worsened sharply.
Economic reports from the San Francisco Office of Economic Analysis show that not all sectors have followed the same path since the pandemic began. Industries such as professional and business services, trade, transportation, utilities, and leisure and hospitality have seen declines in employment levels.
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At the same time, private education and health services have shown the strongest growth among major sectors in the city. These shifts highlight how San Francisco’s workforce is changing, even as overall layoffs have decreased.
The improved layoff tally for the second straight year reflects a slowdown in job losses rather than a full recovery. Thousands of workers were still affected in 2025, but the scale of layoffs was far smaller than during the peak of post-pandemic cuts. For many residents, this reduction has brought a measure of stability in an otherwise challenging economic environment.
