Raising fears of an economic slowdown, job losses battered Santa Clara County in April, a setback mirrored by a loss of more than 16,000 jobs in California, according to a new report released Friday by state labor officials.

For Santa Clara County, the employment slump marked the third time in four months this year that the South Bay lost jobs. That’s a sharp contrast to recent years, during which the South Bay had been the nation’s strongest job market.

“There is genuine softness in the Bay Area labor market,” said Jon Haveman, chief economist with San Rafael-based Marin Economic Consulting. “We need more data, but this seems to be the start of a widespread decline in economic activity in the Bay Area.”

Santa Clara County lost 2,900 jobs during April, but the nine-county Bay Area lost only 200 jobs primarily because of gains in other metro areas, the state’s Employment Development Department reported.

The bright spots included the East Bay, which added 500 jobs, and the San Francisco-San Mateo region, which gained 1,500 jobs. All the numbers were adjusted for seasonal variations.

Santa Clara County may have reached a point where its job market simply can’t expand at the pace of the peak years of 2013 through 2016, experts said.

“We are looking at a Santa Clara County economy that is at full employment,” said Robert Kleinhenz, an economist and executive director of research with Beacon Economics. “Huge job gains are hard to come by when everyone who is employable already has a job.”

So far in 2017, Santa Clara County has lost 7,900 jobs, and is averaging a loss of nearly 2,000 jobs a month. In 2016, Santa Clara County averaged a gain of 2,600 jobs a month.

California suffered a loss of 16,300 jobs — a decline that broke a string of nine straight months of job gains for the Golden State. California last endured job losses in June 2016.

The state’s unemployment rate and the changes in payroll jobs are derived from two different surveys and can move in opposite directions. The statewide jobless rate improved to 4.8 percent in April, compared with 4.9 percent in March. February 2001 was the last time the California unemployment rate was this low.

In the Bay Area, jobs also have declined three out of the four months so far this year, although a huge gain of 12,100 jobs in March helped overcome losses in January, February and April. During the first four months of 2017, the Bay Area added 5,100 jobs, but that’s just a fraction of the 43,600 jobs the nine-county region gained over the first four months of 2016.

During the first four months of 2017, the San Francisco-San Mateo area added 8,800 jobs and the East Bay added 4,300 jobs, this newspaper’s analysis of the EDD figures shows.

Some industries showed pronounced weakness in Santa Clara County in April, according to a Beacon Economics and UC Riverside Business School analysis of the EDD report. Construction companies erased 1,700 jobs in the South Bay, while administrative support — a sector that includes clerical jobs — shed 800 positions. Hotels and restaurants lost 500 jobs, while the normally robust tech industry lost 100 jobs. Retail was one of the few bright spots in Santa Clara County last month, adding 700 jobs.

In the East Bay, the strongest sector, by far, was construction, which added 2,100 jobs. However, administrative support lost 1,300 jobs and the technology industry shed 700 jobs. The health care and manufacturing industries each eliminated a net of 600 jobs, Beacon’s analysis showed.

The San Francisco-San Mateo region’s strongest industry was hotels and restaurants, which added 2,600 jobs. Health care added 700 jobs. Financial services employers shed 800 jobs, according to Beacon.

“It’s possible the cost of living in the Bay Area and Santa Clara County is so high that it’s a deterrent to people looking for a job, including a job in technology,” Kleinhenz said. “Even if they can get high wages for the tech job, those wages might not be high enough to get them to accept a job in the Bay Area.”

Despite the job losses, the region doesn’t face an economic downturn or contraction.

“The Bay Area economy isn’t headed toward recession,” Kleinhenz said. “It just means the economy is at full capacity. The limit to that is people are not going to move to the Bay Area if they can’t afford to live there.”