| July 2006 |
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| It's more than Web 2.0. It's Life 2.0 for tech workers reinventing themselves for the next dot-com boom |
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Everyone knows that Silicon Valley is important, but what's not as well known is that Silicon Valley is big. San Jose, the unofficial capital of the Valley, is America's 10th largest city, with a population of close to 950,000. That also makes it the third-largest city in California. San Jose's metro area is home to more than 7,000 high-tech companies which employ more than 300,000 people, according to the state's Employment Development Department.
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The region generates 30% more patents than its closest competitor and rakes in more than a third of the nation's venture capital. The dot-com bust may have been a body blow to the region, but it's quickly being forgotten as the Valley goes back to its technology roots to rise anew.
Is Silicon Valley a good place to be growing a technology career? As it turns out, 41 of the 100 fastest growing high-tech companies on the most recent Business 2.0 magazine list are located in California, and most of them make their home in the Valley. Some examples: Adobe, with an 82.5% rise in headcount in 2005; Secure Computing, up 69.8% in headcount; and the massive eBay, with 11,600 employees, up 43.2% last year. Other Valley powerhouses: SanDisk, Apple Computer, and the current 900-pound gorilla, Google.
It's well known that the founders of both Yahoo! and Google were Stanford grad students. As it turns out, Stanford talent has launched 1,200 tech companies to date, and not just computer companies. Biotech is taking off in the Valley, especially since the state's Proposition 71 earmarked $3 billion in funding for stem-cell research.
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| "Jobs are definitely available. 28% of companies interviewed in Santa Clara plan to hire more employees in the third quarter." |
| - Priscilla Azcueta, Manpower Employment |
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Jobs are definitely available. The quarterly Manpower Employment Outlook Survey has found that 28% of the companies interviewed in Santa Clara County plan to hire more employees in the third quarter, according to Manpower spokesperson Priscilla Azcueta.
And on Dice.com, the number of Silicon Valley job listings rose a strong 8% in the second quarter, from 8,202 in March to 8,842 in June.
A June study done for the Washington Alliance of Technology (an offshoot of the national CWA union) found that a recovery also seems to be well under way in the San Francisco area. San Francisco was one of the biggest losers of IT jobs in percentage terms between 2001 and 2003, but it has also been one of the biggest gainers of IT employment between 2003 and 2005 –a gain of 3,000 IT jobs.
Further confirmation comes from IT staffing consultancy Robert Half Technology, whose third-quarter IT Hiring Index finds that a net 16% of San Francisco CIOs plan to make new hires this quarter. The Hudson Employment Index for San Francisco, a measurement of employee confidence, inched up in May by 0.4 points to 106.2 – the city’s highest reading on record. The latest Index is more than 20 points higher than it was at this time last year, according to Steve Wolfe, executive vice president, Hudson North America. Hudson also reports that 34% of the workforce say their organization will be increasing headcount over the coming months; up nine percentage points from the beginning of the year.
And AeA, the nation’s largest trade association for the high-tech industry, says that not only is San Jose/Silicon Valley the state’s largest technology hub, with 214,900 jobs, but it also pays the highest annual average wage of all California cybercities: $126,700. Of the16 high-tech sectors AeA tracks, the region is the employment leader in eight. Clearly the right positions are available for the right people and those positions pay well; a must for the famously expensive area. It looks like competition for housing will remain fierce, and as for that 101, expect bumper-to-bumper traffic for the foreseeable future.
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| Dice job postings in Silicon Valley are up 21% since Dec. |
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