Bay Area residents expect economy to shrink, survey finds



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More than half of Bay Area residents think the region will experience a significant economic downturn within the next five years, according to a survey released Tuesday by the Bay Area Council.

About 52 percent of people surveyed by the council expect the region’s economy to stumble within that time frame, while another 7 percent say a downturn could hit after five years. Twenty percent do not anticipate the Bay Area economy to shrink in the foreseeable future.

“On the one hand, people are aware there are a lot of companies moving and expanding in the Bay Area,” said Jim Wunderman, president and chief executive officer of the council, a public policy group representing the region’s business community. “There are also a lot of companies people fear will never reach profitability and as a result, we’ll experience loss of jobs.”

While confidence in the area’s economic future might be slipping, many residents have yet to see signs of trouble in their own lives. More than 80 percent of residents surveyed said they think the economy is doing the same or better than six months ago.

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The online survey of more than 1,000 residents, conducted between Feb. 12 and March 9 by the Oakland research firm EMC Research, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points."

In 2014, Bay Area tech companies employed more than 450,000 people, about 12 percent of the area’s workforce, according to data from the council’s Economic Institute. The number of jobs produced by tech has since increased, and the ripple effect in the economy is significant, Wunderman said.

“When you add tech jobs, you’re adding service jobs, you’re adding construction jobs, you’re adding support jobs,” Wunderman said. “We want to do what we can to sustain this economy, which is such the envy of other regions.”

Jessica Floum is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jfloum@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jfloum