The East Bay Economic Development Alliance (East Bay EDA) is a cross-sector public–private partnership with a 35-year track record of promoting strategic economic development, workforce growth, and quality of life in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. The Contra Costa Economic Partnership (CCEP) is a public–private partnership focused on strengthening Contra Costa County’s economy through workforce initiatives, data and policy analysis, and collaboration across business, education, and government. These organizations, along with Innovation Tri-Valley, have an established record of economic development activities meant to boost the region.

Recently the two organizations announced a new collaboration that invests in data resources to enhance their efforts to track regional economic trends and provide deeper insights to guide policy and investment decisions across the East Bay. Together, East Bay EDA and CCEP are coordinating data sourcing and analysis to create a unified regional approach “that improves efficiency and expands the value delivered to public agencies, employers, and community partners,” according to officials. “This alignment comes at a time when high-quality economic information is essential to maintaining a competitive and resilient regional economy.”

Partnership Boosts Regional Economy

“Strong regional economies are built on strong regional partnerships,” according to Mark Orcutt, Executive Director of the Contra Costa Economic Partnership. “By aligning our data work with East Bay EDA, we’re ensuring that public agencies, employers, and community leaders have the reliable information they need to act with confidence. It is good for the East Bay when organizations like ours work together to support the needs of the region.”

East Bay EDA Executive Director Stephen Baiter underscores the importance of the collaboration, emphasizing that access to timely, strategic economic data is a public good and that partnering with CCEP “expands both organizations’ ability to serve as sources of trusted information that communities, businesses, and local governments depend on to plan for the future.”

According to Baiter, “The partnership between East Bay EDA and CCEP was driven by a need to strategically leverage limited resources by joining forces to pay for the cost of an improved data dashboard tool. Previously, each organization had its own data dashboard tools that were supported by different back-end providers.”

Valuable Data Freely Available

Baiter points out that Hacienda tenant companies and others now have access to a more consistent data tool, with “helpful information about the East Bay economy and labor market that can be disaggregated at the city, county, and regional levels. Companies may also be interested in understanding more about the concentration of specific jobs and industries, as well as get a general sense of compensation ranges and what kinds of jobs are being listed, etc. This could help a company that is seeking to start or grow in the region with forecasting and planning their path forward.”

Lightcast, a leading data provider on labor market analytics, is the provider of the data that powers the upgraded East Bay Data Dashboard. Officials say Lightcast gathers and integrates economic, labor market, demographic, education, profile, and job posting data from dozens of government and private-sector sources, creating a comprehensive and current dataset that includes both published data and detailed estimates with full United States coverage. The dashboard also uses Zillow Housing data.

“The East Bay Data Dashboard provides current insights into key economic metrics such as population, unemployment rates, industry employment, top job postings, in-demand skills, and more,” note officials. “Whether you’re a business, resident, or policymaker, the East Bay Data Dashboard offers a comprehensive view of the economic landscape, helping you stay informed about the economy and make data-driven decisions with confidence.”

The dashboard is regularly updated, and information can be sorted by Alameda or Contra Costa county or viewed for the East Bay as a whole. The Industry Characteristics chart, for example, includes the 2024 total for jobs by industry, average earnings per worker, percentage in job number change between 2019 and 2024, and the industry concentration number, called LQ. LQ, according to the dashboard, “quantifies the concentration of employed workers in a region relative to the national average. It can reveal what makes a particular region ‘unique’ in comparison to the national average.”

A great deal of data can be gleaned from the dashboard, including Annual Wage Ranges by Occupation, Job Postings by Industry and by Minimum Education Level, the Top 20 Skills based on Job Postings, and Unemployment and Labor Force Participation Rates. Similar information can be filtered by city as well. Additionally, as part of the partnership announcement, the two organizations are offering cost-free access to fourth-quarter 2025 economic reports from Lightcast, one for each county.

“Taken by itself, the East Bay is the twentieth-largest metropolitan area in the United States, and its economy is supported by a wide range of industries,” Baiter notes. “This diversity of companies and jobs can sometimes help the region’s ability to navigate difficult economic times as compared with other Bay Area counties. It is difficult to make a lot of predictions about where things are headed, but the fundamentals of the East Bay economy still appear to be strong.”

Thanks to this new partnership between the Contra Costa Economic Partnership and the East Bay Economic Development Alliance, the regional economy and labor market data available at no charge to government officials, business executives, private-public partnership organizations, nonprofits, entrepreneurs, and the general public is regularly updated and now of higher quality. While the future is impossible to predict, data underlies modern business and governance practice and the East Bay Data Dashboard offers the region data aplenty.

For more information about the Contra Costa Economic Partnership, please visit www.ccpartnership.org.

For more information about the East Bay Economic Development Alliance, please visit www.eastbayeda.org.

To explore the East Bay Data Dashboard, please visit www.eastbayeda.org/east-bay-data-dashboard.

To download the Lightcast Q4 2025 report on Alameda County, please visit www.eastbayeda.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Economy_Overview_Alameda_County_CA_Q42025.pdf

To download the Lightcast Q4 2025 report on Contra Costa County, please visit www.eastbayeda.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Economy_Overview_Contra_Costa_County_CA_Q42025.pdf.