Santa Cruz-Watsonville, CA

Metropolitan statistical area, CBSA 42100 · 37.02, -122.01

9 findings fired for Santa Cruz-Watsonville, CA this run, against a typical home value of $1,136,154 in September 2026 and covered employment of 100,397 in 2026 Q1.

Jobs, OEWS
98,500
as of May 2025
  • 47th pct · 205th of 393 US metro areas · median 105,500

Total employment in the BLS OEWS occupational tables for this metro area. It is an occupational survey total, not the QCEW payroll count below.

Jobs, county rollup
100,397
as of 2026 Q1

An estimate: the sum of the member counties BLS publishes, not BLS's own metro row, whose boundaries follow each year's delineation. The arithmetic is printed below.

Typical home value
$1,136,154
as of 2026-09
  • 99th pct · 2nd of 379 US metro areas · median $305,707

Zillow Home Value Index, metro file, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.

Typical rent
$3,469
as of 2026-09
  • 99th pct · 3rd of 382 US metro areas · median $1,504

Zillow Observed Rent Index, metro file.

Price-to-rent
27.3years of rent
as of 2026-09
  • 98th pct · 5th of 379 US metro areas · median 16.9

typical home value / (typical rent × 12); Zillow ZHVI over ZORI, same month.

Home value, 1-yr
4.8%
as of 2026-09
  • 85th pct · 54th of 379 US metro areas · median 2.0%

Zillow's own twelve-month change on the metro row.

A percentile here is a min-max scaling of average rank: the smallest published value in the cohort is 0 and the largest is 100, and tied values share the average of the ranks they span. It is not the share of entities below the value, so 0 means smallest, not none below. Entities that did not publish the metric are outside the cohort entirely and are counted in neither the rank nor its denominator.

Occupation mix #

currentas of May 2025retrieved 2026-10-19

The 30 largest detailed occupations and all 22 SOC major groups in Santa Cruz-Watsonville, CA, from the bundled BLS OEWS release.

Top 30 detailed occupations by employment, Santa Cruz-Watsonville, CA, OEWS May 2025.
SOCOccupationJobsMean annual wageLocation quotient
31-1120Home Health and Personal Care Aides4,470$37,7201.64
43-9061Office Clerks, General3,360$47,3002.15
35-3023Fast Food and Counter Workers3,220$41,5801.32
41-2011Cashiers2,530$40,7101.29
41-2031Retail Salespersons2,430$42,0500.98
11-1021General and Operations Managers1,770$127,3900.80
29-1141Registered Nurses1,750$159,8300.82
35-3031Waiters and Waitresses1,640$45,0201.14
37-2011Janitors and Cleaners, Except Maids and Housekeeping Cleaners1,510$45,4001.08
53-7065Stockers and Order Fillers1,250$42,1300.70
43-3031Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks1,120$65,1201.29
25-3031Substitute Teachers, Short-Term1,070$58,8103.22
25-9045Teaching Assistants, Except Postsecondary1,060$48,8901.18
37-3011Landscaping and Groundskeeping Workers1,030$48,5101.71
35-2014Cooks, Restaurant1,020$44,0901.15
25-2021Elementary School Teachers, Except Special Education1,000$91,8201.14
31-9092Medical Assistants960$55,0901.85
35-1012First-Line Supervisors of Food Preparation and Serving Workers960$53,8601.24
43-6014Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive960$58,4600.89
49-9071Maintenance and Repair Workers, General880$55,6600.91
43-1011First-Line Supervisors of Office and Administrative Support Workers860$81,0900.95
53-7062Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers, Hand860$45,3200.46
35-2021Food Preparation Workers830$42,0601.46
37-2012Maids and Housekeeping Cleaners830$44,1301.52
43-4051Customer Service Representatives820$52,9000.50
41-1011First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers800$55,1901.13
41-4012Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Except Technical and Scientific Products750$86,8300.95
53-3032Heavy and Tractor-Trailer Truck Drivers750$60,2400.57
13-2011Accountants and Auditors740$94,6400.81
43-6013Medical Secretaries and Administrative Assistants720$54,6401.19
All 22 SOC major groups, Santa Cruz-Watsonville, CA, OEWS May 2025.
SOCOccupationJobsMean annual wageLocation quotient
43-0000Office and Administrative Support Occupations11,810$57,2901.05
35-0000Food Preparation and Serving Related Occupations11,210$43,7501.29
41-0000Sales and Related Occupations8,480$53,4001.00
31-0000Healthcare Support Occupations7,220$45,5401.44
25-0000Educational Instruction and Library Occupations6,930$77,1101.20
11-0000Management Occupations6,660$142,8900.94
53-0000Transportation and Material Moving Occupations5,990$51,8000.69
29-0000Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations5,560$142,4900.89
13-0000Business and Financial Operations Occupations5,260$95,3100.79
37-0000Building and Grounds Cleaning and Maintenance Occupations3,880$48,0101.35
47-0000Construction and Extraction Occupations3,820$73,5500.94
51-0000Production Occupations3,560$54,5400.66
21-0000Community and Social Service Occupations2,950$71,6701.74
49-0000Installation, Maintenance, and Repair Occupations2,860$66,3800.74
39-0000Personal Care and Service Occupations2,750$47,1401.34
15-0000Computer and Mathematical Occupations2,160$125,7900.65
33-0000Protective Service Occupations2,090$75,1300.87
17-0000Architecture and Engineering Occupations1,460$133,2200.88
27-0000Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media Occupations1,300$82,2001.00
19-0000Life, Physical, and Social Science Occupations1,240$105,0401.33
23-0000Legal Occupations660$129,4000.80
45-0000Farming, Fishing, and Forestry Occupations660$41,8502.38

BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, metropolitan area tables, committed to this repository rather than fetched. A location quotient above 1 means the occupation is more concentrated here than in the United States as a whole; wages are means, not medians, and BLS suppresses a wage where its sample is too thin.

Housing #

currentas of 2026-09retrieved 2026-10-19

The typical home in the Santa Cruz, CA metro was worth $1,136,154 in September 2026.

25 months to September 2026. Rent: $3,469 in September 2026.

Zillow's metro row was matched to this CBSA BY NAME, not by a shared code: Zillow titles metros short ("Austin, TX") where the Census titles them long. Both series are Zillow's own smoothed indices of the middle third of the market, not sale prices.

Employment, rolled up from member counties #

currentas of 2026 Q1retrieved 2026-10-19

About 100,397 covered jobs across the 1 member county BLS published.

  • jobs = sum of QCEW third-month employment across the 1 of 1 member counties BLS publishes.
  • 100,397 = 100,397
The 1 counties the place manifest assigns to CBSA 42100.
CountyFIPS
Santa Cruz County, CA06087

The place manifest names 1 member county for this metro, fewer than the 5 a cohort needs before a percentile means anything, so no within-metro position is offered for its counties. The positions above are against the other 392 metropolitan areas, which is a cohort that does not depend on the county pull.

There are no QCEW metro employment totals here, and that is a property of the data rather than an omission: BLS does publish MSA area codes (C####), but lib/economy's QCEW reader handles only county (SSCCC), state (SS000) and national (US000) rows at aggregation levels 74, 54 and 14, and the /api/economy route regex rejects anything else. So this figure is a sum of member counties, labelled an estimate, with every county it could not count named.

National indicator context #

currentretrieved 2026-10-19

None of these series is keyed to this metro area. They are national, gauge, single-state or port series, shown as context for the numbers above.

The national indicator set, filtered by lens only.
IndicatorLatestUnitStatus
Mississippi River at Memphis, stagenot publishedftno data
Mississippi River at St. Louis, stagenot publishedftno data
Ohio River at Louisville, stage17.95ftok
Missouri River at St. Joseph, stagenot publishedftno data
Colorado River below Hoover Dam, flow (Hoover releases)5,170.00ft³/sok
Texas reservoirs, statewide percent full72.20%ok
Laredo truck crossings, monthly258,700.00trucksok
Los Angeles + Long Beach container volume, annual10,513,167.00TEUwatch
Containerships waiting for a berth, all US ports7.00shipsok
Shanghai to Los Angeles container rate7,848.00$ per 40 ft boxwatch
US diesel retail pricenot published$ per gallonno data
WTI crude oil, spot101.91$ per barrelwatch
30-year fixed mortgage rate7.40%watch
Housing starts, annual rate1,275.00thousands of unitsok
Building permits, annual rate1,403.00thousands of unitsok
Case-Shiller US home price index337.31index, Jan 2000 = 100ok
Unemployment rate4.20%ok
US goods and services trade balance, monthly-105,572.00$ millionsok
Retail sales excluding food services, monthly652,115.00$ millionsok

lib/indicators has no geographic selection: every registry entry is a United States, gauge, Texas, port, crossing or world series, and no entry is metro-keyed. Reading these as this metro's own readings would be wrong.

What changed #

currentretrieved 2026-10-19

Santa Cruz-Watsonville, CA: 9 findings, 2 at a watch level and 7 noted

  1. watchSanta Cruz-Watsonville, CA's price-to-rent ratio of 27.3 ranks 5th of 379 US metro areas, a watch level here: price-to-rent in the top tenth of US metro areas (position among the metro areas that published both ZHVI and ZORI this month; not an official level). The previous published period is not in this table, so this is a standing level rather than a change.

    Period 2026-09.
    Show the arithmetic
    • test: priceToRent percentile = 98.94179894179894 >= 90
    • typical home value / (typical rent × 12); Zillow ZHVI over ZORI, same month

    position among the metro areas that published both ZHVI and ZORI this month; not an official level

  2. watchSanta Cruz-Watsonville, CA's price-to-rent ratio is 27.3, a watch level here: typical home value worth 25 or more years of typical rent (typical home value / (typical rent × 12), Zillow ZHVI over ZORI, same month; convention chosen for this dashboard, not an official level). The previous published period is not in this table, so this is a standing level rather than a change.

    Period 2026-09.
    Show the arithmetic
    • test: priceToRent = 27.28994837004487 >= 25
    • typical home value / (typical rent × 12); Zillow ZHVI over ZORI, same month

    typical home value / (typical rent × 12), Zillow ZHVI over ZORI, same month; convention chosen for this dashboard, not an official level

  3. noteSanta Cruz-Watsonville, CA's typical home value rose 0.4% from $1,131,485 in August 2026 to $1,136,154 in September 2026, on Zillow ZHVI.

    Period 2026-09.
    Show the arithmetic
    • +0.4% = (1136154.021880075 - 1131485.4814250658) / 1131485.4814250658 × 100
    • 1136154.021880075 = Zillow ZHVI, 2026-09
    • 1131485.4814250658 = Zillow ZHVI, 2026-08

  4. noteSanta Cruz-Watsonville, CA's typical asking rent fell 0.3% from $3,480 in August 2026 to $3,469 in September 2026, on Zillow ZORI.

    Period 2026-09.
    Show the arithmetic
    • -0.3% = (3469.391020441272 - 3479.932791269984) / 3479.932791269984 × 100
    • 3469.391020441272 = Zillow ZORI, 2026-09
    • 3479.932791269984 = Zillow ZORI, 2026-08

  5. noteSanta Cruz-Watsonville, CA's typical home value of $1,136,154 ranks 2nd of 379 US metro areas, against a median of $305,707.

    Period 2026-09.
    Show the arithmetic
    • 100 on the 0-to-100 scale across 379 US metro areas that published home.latest

    position among the entities that published this metric this period; not an official level

The full Santa Cruz, CA brief, with the arithmetic behind every sentence.

Metro briefs are thinner by construction: with no QCEW metro path, their findings come from Zillow's metro home value and rent rows, the county rollup, and nearby crossings and ports.

Sources #

  • publishedOccupational Employment and Wage StatisticsU.S. Bureau of Labor Statisticsopen the source
    MSA 42100, all occupations · period May 2025 · retrieved 2026-10-19
  • estimateQuarterly Census of Employment and WagesU.S. Bureau of Labor Statisticsopen the source
    · retrieved 2026-10-19 · jobs = sum of QCEW third-month employment across the 1 of 1 member counties BLS publishes. 100,397 = 100,397
  • publishedZillow Home Value Index (ZHVI)Zillow Researchopen the source
    Metro_zhvi_uc_sfrcondo_tier_0.33_0.67_sm_sa_month.csv · period 2026-09 · retrieved 2026-10-19
  • publishedZillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI)Zillow Researchopen the source
    Metro_zori_uc_sfrcondomfr_sm_month.csv · period 2026-09 · retrieved 2026-10-19
  • estimateZillow Home Value Index (ZHVI)Zillow Researchopen the source
    · retrieved 2026-10-19 · typical home value / (typical rent × 12); Zillow ZHVI over ZORI, same month
  • estimateZillow Home Value Index (ZHVI)Zillow Researchopen the source
    · retrieved 2026-10-19 · month-over-month percent change = (newest month − previous month) / |previous month| × 100, from Zillow's own published month columns
  • estimateZillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI)Zillow Researchopen the source
    · retrieved 2026-10-19 · month-over-month percent change = (newest month − previous month) / |previous month| × 100, from Zillow's own published month columns

Citations

  • U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics. series MSA 42100, all occupations. period May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/tables.htm. accessed 2026-10-19.
  • U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. https://www.bls.gov/cew/. accessed 2026-10-19. estimate computed by Embedding Atlas: jobs = sum of QCEW third-month employment across the 1 of 1 member counties BLS publishes. 100,397 = 100,397.
  • Zillow Research. Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI). series Metro_zhvi_uc_sfrcondo_tier_0.33_0.67_sm_sa_month.csv. period 2026-09. https://files.zillowstatic.com/research/public_csvs/zhvi/Metro_zhvi_uc_sfrcondo_tier_0.33_0.67_sm_sa_month.csv. accessed 2026-10-19.
  • Zillow Research. Zillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI). series Metro_zori_uc_sfrcondomfr_sm_month.csv. period 2026-09. https://files.zillowstatic.com/research/public_csvs/zori/Metro_zori_uc_sfrcondomfr_sm_month.csv. accessed 2026-10-19.
  • Zillow Research. Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI). https://www.zillow.com/research/data/. accessed 2026-10-19. estimate computed by Embedding Atlas: typical home value / (typical rent × 12); Zillow ZHVI over ZORI, same month.
  • Zillow Research. Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI). https://www.zillow.com/research/data/. accessed 2026-10-19. estimate computed by Embedding Atlas: month-over-month percent change = (newest month − previous month) / |previous month| × 100, from Zillow's own published month columns.
  • Zillow Research. Zillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI). https://www.zillow.com/research/data/. accessed 2026-10-19. estimate computed by Embedding Atlas: month-over-month percent change = (newest month − previous month) / |previous month| × 100, from Zillow's own published month columns.

What these numbers are not

  • There is no metro market report: MarketReport describes a county or a state, and BLS QCEW's own metro rows follow each year's delineation, so they are not used here. The metro page shows Zillow's own metro rows and a county-rollup employment estimate with its arithmetic instead.
  • Zillow's metro row was matched to this CBSA BY NAME (Zillow titles metros short, "Austin, TX", where the Census titles them long), not by a shared code. RegionID 395065.
  • Metro employment is an ESTIMATE: the sum of the member counties BLS did publish, not BLS QCEW's own metro row, whose boundaries follow each year's delineation. Withheld counties are named and excluded, never zeroed.
  • The indicator block is the NATIONAL set, filtered only by lens. None of these series is keyed to this place: they are United States, gauge, single-state or port series and they are shown as context, not as this place's own readings.

Page assembled 2026-10-19T21:47:27.632Z. Place identity tables pulled 2026-10-01.