Dogs walk on the lawn in Civic Center Plaza in front of City Hall San Francisco, Calif., on Thursday, July 13, 2021. (Harika Maddala/ Bay City News)

The latest report out Friday on the recovery of the San Francisco economy presents a mix of good and bad as COVID-19 restrictions have been eased by officials.

Overall, the city’s economic recovery has been slowed by the Delta variant, but some indicators show things improved in September, according to the latest data available.

Office attendance had its strongest month so far, employment has been rising, led by hiring in the hard-hit leisure and hospitality sector, and the public sector added jobs. The growth in public sector jobs was focused in the K-12 and post-secondary education markets.

Other indicators show parts of the economy worsening. The office vacancy rate continued to rise over the July to September quarter, a labor shortage is developing as employment rises and the city’s labor force shrinks, and apartment rents remain 13 percent below their pre-pandemic level.

The latest report on the city’s economic recovery can be found at https://openbook.sfgov.org/webreports/details3.aspx?id=3021.

Keith Burbank is currently a fulltime reporter covering Alameda County and Oakland news for Bay City News. He has also worked on the Data Points project for Local News Matters, finding trends and stories about the region through data. In 2019, he was a California Fellow at the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism, producing a series about homeless deaths in Santa Clara County. He worked as a swing shift editor for the newswire for several years as well. Outside of journalism, Keith enjoys computer programming, math, economics and music.