At the Blog | May 19, 2025
Silicon Valley and the Pandemic: Five Years Later
By Russell Hancock and Danny Wessler
Five years have passed since Santa Clara County’s health officials issued the nation’s first shelter-in-place orders and we plunged headlong into a global pandemic. Now, as the region settles into new rhythms, how does it compare to the world we left behind?
In some ways, we’re back where we started, but in others we’re seeing shifts that signal a new normal. The data we collect tells the story.
Health and Wellbeing
COVID quickly became Silicon Valley’s third leading cause of death during the pandemic, behind only cancer and heart disease. At its peak in 2021, the virus was linked to nearly one in ten deaths in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. While COVID-related deaths have declined significantly since then, the virus remains a pernicious force. It continues to generate new severe illnesses and burden those suffering from long COVID. The full toll of the disease may never be known.
Beyond its physical toll, the pandemic severely disrupted our lifestyles and, for many, our sense of wellbeing. The share of Silicon Valley residents reporting psychological distress nearly doubled during the pandemic, reaching a high in 2022 of one in five people. Even more concerning was the impact it had on the lives of young people, who were already more likely to struggle with mental health challenges. In 2021, at the height of the pandemic, 43% of Silicon Valley’s children reported symptoms of psychological distress.
Explore the data on Mental Health
Although COVID deaths have dropped significantly and rates of psychological distress in Silicon Valley have been trending downward, both remained slightly elevated even after the worst of the pandemic had passed — a sign that, for some, the pandemic’s impacts are persisting beyond the virus itself.
Jobs and Employment
The pandemic took an immediate and profound toll on Silicon Valley’s economy, triggering tens of thousands of job losses. Although many job losses were temporary furloughs, others were permanent layoffs. The region’s unemployment rate peaked at nearly 13% in April 2020 — higher than at any point during the Great Recession.
Now five years on, the region’s labor market has largely rebounded, despite some bumps along the way. According to preliminary data just released by the California Department of Labor, the unemployment rate for Santa Clara and San Mateo counties now stands at a much healthier 3.8%. As of the middle of last year, the Silicon Valley workforce totaled 1.72 million people — slightly more than the same time in 2019. Given that Silicon Valley has also absorbed waves of tech layoffs since 2022, the numbers tell an impressive story of resilience.
Explore the data on Job Growth
Though topline job numbers have stabilized, a change in the composition of the region’s jobs tells a more complicated story. The tech sector (Innovation & Information Products & Services) has grown more rapidly than others, expanding 8% since 2019. Jobs in Community Infrastructure & Services — which employs more than half the region’s workforce — also saw modest growth. However, that growth was uneven, masking a significant decline in sectors like personal services, retail, hospitality, transportation, and nonprofits.
Explore the data on Areas of Economic Activity
Remote Work
Silicon Valley tech companies were early adopters of remote work, with many sending employees home before the shelter-in-place orders. Other sectors quickly followed suit, and so did the rest of the nation.
The U.S. Census provides some of the clearest data on the sudden growth of remote work. Before the pandemic, it showed one in ten Silicon Valley workers did not have to commute — they primarily worked from home instead. This share more than tripled during the pandemic, peaking at an average of 35% in 2021. When offices reopened and workers began trickling back, that share fell by half, but remained well above pre-pandemic levels. By 2023, nearly 100,000 more Silicon Valley employees were working from home than before the pandemic.
Explore the data on Remote Work and Commuting
How did Silicon Valley compare to the nation on this measure? Digging into the data from 2021, when remote work was at its peak, reveals a striking finding. Among U.S. regions with at least 1 million residents, San Francisco and San Jose ranked #1 and #2, respectively, for the highest shares of people working from home. This reflects not only the region’s early embrace of remote work, but its high concentration of knowledge-based jobs that can be done remotely.
Explore the data on Remote Work and Commuting
Schools and Education
The abrupt shift to virtual learning early in the pandemic severely disrupted students’ routines, resulting in lost momentum, high stress, and uneven access and engagement. The setback showed clearly in attendance and test scores.
Chronic absenteeism, defined as missing 10% or more of school days, has emerged as one of the most revealing and persistent indicators of pandemic-era disruption. More than just missed classroom time, it can reflect deeper issues such as academic disengagement, economic insecurity, and inequitable access to resources.
Before the pandemic, one in ten public school students in the region were chronically absent. That rate doubled to nearly one in five in the 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 school years — even after schools had reopened and resumed consistent attendance tracking. While the rate ticked down slightly last school year, it remained 50% above pre-pandemic levels. Additionally, chronic absenteeism has disproportionately affected various racial and ethnic groups, threatening to widen socioeconomic inequalities over time.
Explore the data on School Attendance
The disruption also had a measurable impact on student performance. Key testing data from the California Department of Education confirms that students lost ground during the pandemic and are struggling to catch back up. In Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, the share of third graders meeting standards in English Language Arts and eighth graders meeting standards in Math both dropped about 5 points after the pandemic and have yet to recover, representing a significant setback for the region’s students.
Explore the data on English Language Arts Proficiency | Explore the data on Math Proficiency
Transportation
The first-in-the-nation sheltering orders brought activity in Silicon Valley to a screeching halt. As commerce slowed and downloads of Zoom skyrocketed, traffic on state freeways was cut in half from 2019, falling to the lowest level on record with the California Department of Transportation. However, as life gradually picked back up, so did traffic. Miles traveled on freeways in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties — a proxy for the movement of goods and people — have steadily increased each year since the pandemic. Today, we are driving just as much as we did in 2019.
While driving patterns suggest a return to normalcy, mass transit usage tells a more complicated story. Average weekday ridership on Caltrain, the region’s workhorse, plunged 94% during the pandemic and is far from recovery. While weekday ridership has steadily increased from 2020-2021 lows, it remains at less than half of pre-pandemic levels. An encouraging sign for Caltrain, however, has been the introduction of new all-electric service after decades of planning and construction. In a potential bellwether for the system and region as a whole, data since electrification suggest the new service could be sparking faster ridership recovery.
Explore the data on Mass Transit
Find all of this and more data on the economic and community health of Silicon Valley at www.SiliconValleyIndicators.org.
About the Authors
Russell Hancock is president and CEO of Joint Venture Silicon Valley. He also serves as president of Joint Venture’s research arm, the Silicon Valley Institute for Regional Studies. You can learn more about Russ on his bio page.
Danny Wessler is a senior researcher at Joint Venture Silicon Valley. You can learn more about Danny on his bio page.
