| April 2006 |
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| Unemployment in California at lowest level in nearly five years |
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Silicon Valley may be California’s IT capital, but its inland neighbor Sacramento also continues to show healthy and competitive signs of growth.
While unemployment in California has fallen to 4.9 percent, its lowest level in nearly five years, the Sacramento-area tech job market is feeding off the economic surge.
“There has been, over the last three quarters, significant improvement in market opportunities for tech employees,” said Ajay Kaul, managing partner of AgreeYa Solutions – a Sacramento-based consulting and software company.
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Kaul said his company has added between 30 and 50 employees nationally since November and now employs approximately 100 workers.
Tech hiring has been a key to the city’s recent economic growth. The NEC Electronics computer-chip plant in the metro area recently said it will add 100 jobs over the next two years. And Intel Corp. is hiring 280 workers at its research park in the Sacramento area this year. Last year the chip maker hired 500 workers.
“We’ve seen significant demand for experienced IT employment in the Sacramento area,” said Scot Melland, CEO of Dice, the leading technology career site. “Many of the hiring companies and recruiting agencies who use Dice observe a tightening labor market, and salaries are starting to trend higher as a result.”
Small companies are also experiencing hiring growth. Aaron Klein, chief executive of software company BizFlex, said employment at his Sacramento-area firm has grown to 27 from 10 in the past few months.
“There is definitely competition for quality IT people,” said Klein. “We have found that it is important to slow down and make sure we hire the best.”
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| Tech professionals in the Sacramento area reported earning an average salary of $73,500 |
| - Dice.com 2005 Salary Survey |
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Technology job listings for the Sacramento area on Dice increased 4 percent during a three-month period, from 521 in December to 542 in March. While job count dipped slightly in March compared to January and February, by mid-April, job count was back over 600.
The most sought-after IT skills right now, according to Dice, include Java, SAP and Oracle.
This year alone should see the creation of 217,000 new tech jobs in the United States, according to Economy.com, making for the best year the industry has seen since it flattened toward the end of 2000.
Virendra Singh, a senior economist at Moody’s Economy.com, said he expects the job-growth trend to remain steady through at least 2010, with an additional 126,000 tech jobs created in 2007 and 123,000 more in 2008.
And it is not just jobs on the rise, wages are also trending upward.
Nationwide, the average high-tech salary grew 5.1 percent in 2005, a telling leap compared to a year earlier, when it grew at 4.3 percent, according to Economy.com.
Tech professionals in the Sacramento area reported earning an average salary of $73,500 in 2005, according to a survey by Dice. This was 4.5 percent more than the average U.S. tech salary of $70,300.
“I wouldn’t say we are going back to the good old days of the dot-com boom but it is definitely a situation where finding good, quality people is challenging,” Kaul said.
If you would like to be interviewed for the next Dice market report, or if you have comments about this article, please contact us at feedback@dice.com.
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| “There has been... significant improvement in market opportunities for tech employees,” |
| - Ajay Kaul, AgreeYa Solutions |
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