| April 2006 |
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| San Bernardino solidifies position as a hot IT job market |
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The San Bernardino area has maintained its status as a top ten job market for the second consecutive year, thanks in part to the continued growth of technology firms in the region.
The metro area, which is also referred to as Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario in economic reports, ranked 10th nationally in terms of job growth, according to a report issued by the Milken Institute, an economic think-tank in Santa Monica, California.
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While unemployment in California has fallen to 4.9 percent, its lowest level in nearly five years, the San Bernardino-area tech job market is feeding off the economic surge.
“The drop in California’s unemployment has been a good signal for an already strong tech sector developing in San Bernardino,” said Scot Melland, CEO of Dice, the leading technology career site. “Many companies and recruiting agencies who use Dice have been watching the labor market grow and tighten, with salaries moving upward as a result.”
Technology job listings on Dice increased 11 percent nationally during a three-month period, from 76,959 in December to 85,447 in March.
As for San Bernardino solidifying its position as a hot IT job market, the Milken Institute said measurements used to calculate the area’s tech strength showed IT to play a crucial role in the region’s economic growth.
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| “Employers expect much more hiring activity” |
| - Evelyn Wilcox, Manpower |
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The report also tracked job growth and salaries, as well as the amount of high-tech job creation.
And San Bernardino-area employers expect hiring to continue during the second quarter of 2006, according to the Manpower Employment Outlook Survey.
From April to June, 40 percent of the companies interviewed for the survey said they plan to hire more workers. Evelyn Wilcox, president of Manpower's San Bernardino office, said the survey is a strong indication that the San Bernardino tech sector is healthy.
“In the San Bernardino area, employers expect much more hiring activity than in the first quarter,” Wilcox said, who noted the first-quarter survey showed a disappointing 17 percent of companies expecting employee growth.
The most sought-after IT skills right now, according to Dice, include Java, SAP and Oracle.
Job growth in San Bernardino hardly comes as a surprise following reports of strong national numbers, according to some economists. This year alone should see the creation of 217,000 new tech jobs in the United States, according to Moody’s 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 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 Southern California reported earning an average salary of $73,400 in 2005, according to a survey by Dice. This was 4.4 percent more than the average U.S. tech salary of $70,300.
“The San Bernardino job market looks likely to remain strong this year,” Wilcox 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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| San Bernardino ranked 10th nationally in terms of job growth |
| - Milken Institute |
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