San Diego: A measurement of the quality of the local job market

The local ACS section publishes a monthly newsletter with job listings. I've taken the time to tabulate all the newsletters that I could find, starting in August of 2006. Below is a graph of the number of ads by month. 

If you would have asked me what the job market was like in San Diego for chemists, I would have told you that it sucked. I regret to inform myself that, well, looking at this chart, it wasn't that bad and that I was applying (since 2/08) right through one of the summer peaks. 

I suppose that it would be nice to have some data from 2004 or 2005, but it looks pretty steady. Older San Diego hands have told me that the market's been bad for awhile here -- I believe them.

Upshot: not as bad as I would have guessed. Still, not a perfect measurement of the chemistry job market. More work to do, I guess. 

P.S. If anyone has a similar means of measuring for other job markets (or hotbeds, as Biospace would have it), let me know in the comments.