The Bay Area and California both added jobs in May as they continued to recover from coronavirus-linked economic maladies — but for the third month in a row, the employment gains were weaker than the prior month.

One big reason for the increasingly wobbly job market: The tech sector, justifiably viewed as the bulwark of the Bay Area economy, shed more than 3,000 jobs in May.

The Bay Area added 6,900 jobs in May, bolstered by gains in Santa Clara County, the East Bay and the San Francisco-San Mateo region, the state Employment Development Department reported Friday.

California gained 42,900 jobs in May, according to the state EDD. And the statewide unemployment rate improved to 4.3% in May, down from 4.6% in April.

Santa Clara County added 1,700 jobs, the East Bay gained 1,900 positions, and the San Francisco-San Mateo region added 2,700 jobs in May, officials reported. All the numbers were adjusted for seasonal variations.

The employment trends for 2022, however, hint at an economy and job market that appear to be softening, this news organization’s analysis of the government reports shows.

“The Bay Area jobs slowdown looks real now,” said Stephen Levy, director of the Palo Alto-based Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy. “There is definitely something going on in the Bay Area in terms of a slowdown in employment.”

California, the Bay Area, Santa Clara County, the East Bay and the San Francisco-San Mateo region all posted job gains in March, April and May that were weaker than in prior months.

“The slowdown appears to be more than a statistical aberration and may be the start of a new trend,” said Scott Anderson, chief economist with Bank of the West. “It is a disappointing development, given the incomplete recovery from the pandemic shutdowns in 2020.”

Plus, the Bay Area and California have yet to recover all of the jobs they had lost during March 2020 and April 2020, the first two months of business shutdowns imposed by the government to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

Here’s how key regions have fared in their efforts to rebound from the mammoth employment losses they suffered at the outset of the business lockdowns:

— California has recovered 93% of the 2.76 million jobs it lost.

— The Bay Area has regained 80.8% of the 650,600 jobs it shed in March and April of 2020.

— Santa Clara County has recouped 89.3% of its vanished jobs.

— The East Bay has regained 84% of its lost jobs.

— The San Francisco-San Mateo region has recovered 81.9% of the jobs it lost.

California and the Bay Area all trail the United States by a significant margin when it comes to regaining the jobs they lost.

The U.S. has regained 96.3% of the 21.99 million jobs the nation lost.

There were some bright spots locally, according to seasonally adjusted numbers released by Beacon Economics and UC Riverside’s Economic Forecasting Center that were derived from the EDD report. Most impressive: The Bay Area gained 9,500 hotel and restaurant jobs in May.

Hotels and restaurants added 4,300 jobs in San Francisco-San Mateo, 2,200 in the East Bay and 2,000 in Santa Clara County.

But Bay Area tech companies chopped 3,300 jobs in May, according to the Beacon assessment.

Tech firms cut 1,400 jobs in the San Francisco-San Mateo region, 1,000 in Santa Clara County and 700 in the East Bay last month.

One possible reason for the increasingly sluggish job gains in the Bay Area: The high cost of living in the region could be making it tougher for employers to hire workers.

“Employers have been raising wages since 2021 to attract workers, and the greatest wage gains have been among lower-wage positions,” said Michael Bernick, an employment attorney with law firm Duane Morris and a former director of the state EDD.

These include industries such as certified nurse assistants, retail clerks and hospitality workers, according to Bernick.

“The pace of wage growth in California and nationally has slowed in the past few months, even as inflation has increased,” Bernick said.

Companies are anxious to hire workers, but prospective employees aren’t necessarily rushing to apply for jobs, said Russell Hancock, president of Joint Venture Silicon Valley, a think tank.

“Many people are no longer willing to work under the same conditions in which they were working prior to the pandemic,” Hancock said. “Desperate employers are holding up new incentives.”

Yet higher wages could unleash an economic peril that is becoming steadily worse: inflation.

“The good news is that we’re seeing higher wages in a high-cost region,” Hancock said. “The bad news is that it drives inflation still higher, and we’re going to be in this cycle for a while, it seems.”

Ominously, an array of current problems could spawn a downturn in the Bay Area, California and the nation, he warned.

“There are some stiff headwinds out there, and we may be on the cusp of a recession,” Hancock said. “A ghastly overseas war, the resulting instability in energy markets and the accompanying inflation are the major forces driving it.”

Even worse, the slowing pace of job gains might mean a full recovery of the lost jobs is more than a year away.

“At the current pace of growth, it will take another 15 months to fully recover, and total jobs may never recover pre-pandemic levels in the Bay Area given slowing growth and rising recession risks,” said Jeffrey Michael, executive director of the Stockton-based Center for Business and Policy Research at University of the Pacific.