Bay Area sees some of steepest population declines in California

California’s population declined for the third year in a row in 2022, with nine Bay Area counties seeing some of the steepest declines, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, citing a state report.

San Francisco saw a drop of 4,400 people, or 0.5 percent of its population, between July 2021 and July 2022, smaller than the drop of 3.7 percent the year before.

The city’s population was an estimated 834,046 people last July, down from a pre-pandemic high of 889,783 people in January 2020. It was the lowest level in 10 years as outmigration wiped out seven years of growth fueled by a tech boom.

The exodus is evident in Downtown San Francisco, with empty offices and trains and shuttered restaurants and shops. The city projects a $728 million deficit over the next two years.

The number of people in California fell 0.54 percent to 39 million, a loss of more than 210,000 people. The third year of losses is attributed to a sharp drop in migration to California and 100,000 total coronavirus pandemic deaths since 2020.

The Bay Area’s losses were driven by a net domestic migration, as many residents left the region and state for cheaper housing, according to the Chronicle.

The nine-county Bay Area saw some of the steepest population declines, ranging from Napa’s loss of 1,800 people to Santa Clara’s loss of 16,500 people, second only to Los Angeles County’s 113,000-person plunge.

On a percentage basis, San Francisco had the smallest population drop among Bay Area counties, while Marin saw the largest at 1.5 percent, followed by Napa at 1.3 percent, San Mateo at 1.1 percent and Alameda at 1 percent.

San Francisco lost 8,700 people to net domestic migration. San Mateo lost 12,700 people. Contra Costa County lost 16,400 people and Alameda lost 27,300 residents.

Santa Clara County, the most populous in the Bay Area, lost 30,900 people to net domestic migration, second in the state behind only Los Angeles County. Santa Clara County’s losses were slightly larger compared to Orange County, a region with 1.2 million more people.

That trend reflected many companies allowing workers to stay remote, along with concerns over affordability, said Walter Schwarm, chief demographer at the California Department of Finance, which released the population report.

Birth numbers in both California and the U.S. have also declined as many young adults are delaying marriage and children to pursue higher education, he said. The cost of housing, education and childcare, which is acutely expensive in the Bay Area, is also a major hurdle.

Schwarm expects a California population turnaround in the next few years, as immigration rises and the wave of people leaving slows from pandemic-level peaks, but he is doubtful it will return to the more than 1 percent growth rates of the past century.

Widespread tech layoffs, which have affected hundreds of thousands of people globally, could dampen population growth, though the number of California layoffs remains unclear.

“The era of large growth for California is probably over,” Schwarm told the Chronicle.

— Dana Bartholomew