San Francisco-Oakland Trendlines

Sunday, October 4, 2026·Charts every weekday

The week ahead: October 5–9

week ahead
Published

October 4, 2026

What’s coming on sfo.metrotrendlines.com the week of October 5–9 — 10 posts on the calendar.

Monday, October 5 — Unemployment in the city of San Francisco, August 2026; SFO against normal, September 2026.

Tuesday, October 6 — San Francisco County for-sale inventory, September 2026; What San Francisco County sellers listed, September 2026.

Wednesday, October 7 — San Francisco County asking prices, September 2026; San Francisco County homes under contract, September 2026.

Thursday, October 8 — How long a San Francisco County listing sits, September 2026; San Francisco-metro unemployment, August 2026.

Friday, October 9 — California jobless claims, week of Sep 26, 2026 (pending — its numbers haven’t landed yet); San Francisco’s labor force, August 2026.

This is the plan, not a promise. Every weekday post here is tied to a data release, and a release that slips takes its post with it — the post simply waits for the day its numbers land. A figure that arrives early, a revision worth writing about, or an unexpected story out of San Francisco can just as easily add a post that isn’t on this list. Expect the week to look roughly like this, and expect at least one day of it not to.

California jobless claims, week of Sep 26, 2026

economy
labor
Published

October 2, 2026

Initial unemployment-insurance claims filed in California state, weekly NSA, 1986 through the week of Sep 26, 2026, on a y axis broken at 200,000: the lower panel shows the ordinary range, a winter spike every year and a recession rise in 2008-09; the short upper panel carries the 2020 surge to 1,058,325. Latest week 34,462.

California workers filed 34,462 initial unemployment claims in the week ending Sep 26, 2026; the steadier four-week average is 34,840, down 8.5% from the same weeks a year ago.

Read the chart in two parts. The y axis is broken at 200,000. Below the break is where this series lives: almost every week since 1986 is in that band, and on its own scale the normal shape is plain — a spike every winter as construction and seasonal retail lay off, and a sustained rise through 2008-09. Above the break, on a compressed scale, is the spring of 2020, when claims reached 1,058,325 in the week of Mar 28, 2020. On a single axis that one episode flattens 40 years into a line along the floor.

Claims are the fastest labour-market number there is — a week old when published — and the noisiest. One week is a data point; the four-week average is the reading. Statewide, not seasonally adjusted, so compare with the same weeks a year earlier rather than the week before.

Source: U.S. Employment and Training Administration, initial unemployment-insurance claims for California, weekly, not seasonally adjusted, via FRED CAICLAIMS. Auto-generated each build.