Mayor Edwin M. Lee today issued the following statement on San Francisco’s unemployment rate dropping to six percent in March for San Francisco, based on preliminary unemployment numbers released by the California Employment Development Department (EDD):

“San Francisco’s steady economic recovery is putting our residents back to work. When I first came into office in January 2011, our unemployment rate was 9.5 percent, and today it stands at a five-year low of six percent. I will continue my focus on job creation, workforce training and education to continue to make sure San Franciscans are ready for the jobs and demands of the 21st Century economy. And, I will continue to work every day with every business sector in our City to support successful policies that grow our economy, create jobs and put San Franciscans back to work.”

San Francisco registered the third lowest unemployment rate among California’s 58 counties. Jobs located in San Francisco increased by 3.6 percent on a year-over as of September 2012, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That ranks San Francisco 17th in performance out of the 329 largest counties in the nation, compared to 1.6 percent nationally and 2.8 percent in California. Between March of 2012 and March of 2013 with a drop of 1.8 percent, San Francisco experienced the largest one-year drop in the unemployment rate in more than two decades.