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Bay Area Tech Job Growth Has Rapidly Decelerated (mercurynews.com)

Posted by msmash on from the fewer-to-come-by dept.

An anonymous reader shares a MercuryNews report: Job growth in the tech industry used to zoom like a race car, but these days, hiring by this principal driver of the Bay Area's economy chugs along more like a family SUV. The technology industry's job growth in the nine-county region has dramatically decelerated, according to this newspaper's analysis of figures released by state labor officials and Beacon Economics. Tech's annual job growth throttled back to 3.5 percent, or 26,700 new jobs, in 2016. That's much slower than the 6 percent annual gain of 42,300 jobs in 2015, or the 6.4 percent gain in 2014. And while the industry's 3.5 percent growth last year is still a sturdy annual pace, Bay Area technology companies have already disclosed plans to slash about 2,000 jobs in the first three months of 2017.

14 of 161 comments (clear)

  1. The internet is a thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's 2017, and you're a technology company, no, I will not move to the Bay Area.

    1. Re:The internet is a thing by Salgak1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Add to that, get asked to move to the Bay Area, and not get offered a pay raise. OR Relocation.

      A former colleague of mine got offered a job as a subcontractor at Apple. She sold her 4-BR house, and most of the furniture, and gave her dog away. . . for enough money to rent a BEDROOM. . . .

      Pass. . .

    2. Re:The internet is a thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "subcontractor"

  2. cost of housing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Studios, 1, 2 bedroom apts are ~$2000, $2500, $3000 respectively. Rooms are $1000-1500/mo.

    1. Re:cost of housing by knightghost · · Score: 3

      My 2700 sqft house on a quarter acre with unlimited free water costs $500/month in Idaho - only a 2 hour flight away from SoCal and 1 time zone.
      I also have 5 acres of forest overlooking a large lake a couple hours away - $150/month.

      SV and others need to expand to nearby cities.

    2. Re:cost of housing by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 3

      SV and others need to expand to nearby cities.

      The exodus is already on for Silicon Valley as people flee to nearby regions. I'm hoping to transfer to the Sacramento Valley this summer. For what I pay for a studio apartment in Silicon Valley, I could get a three-bedroom apartment in Sacramento. Unfortunately, real estate prices are starting to spike there as well.

  3. Re:Let's Face the Facts... by ranton · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Or more likely there is only so much room to fit people in the Bay Area, so hiring in other cities has started to take up the slack. It really is ridiculous to pay developer $200k a year in a place where that doesn't even give you an upper middle class lifestyle when you can pay people $150k in most large cities (or their suburbs) which can give employees a much higher standard of living.

    I wouldn't take a job in the Bay Area for even a $100k/yr raise, since my comfortable six figure salary in the Chicago suburbs gives me a 2500 sq ft house with a nice yard and public schools that rival the best private schools. My $500k house would cost at least $3 million in the Bay Area.

    --
    -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
  4. Re:Hit peak? by Mashiki · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Perhaps people are realizing when your market is global, you don't necessary have to be in the Bay area to develop; indeed, when you consider overheads, it seems silly, as there's good programmers everywhere.

    The only reason companies stay in the Bay area is because of connections and the ability to quickly find venture capital. If that wasn't an issue you wouldn't see this going on at all.

    --
    Om, nomnomnom...
  5. The answer is obvious... by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 4, Funny

    There's a shortage of tech workers to hire. Industry must have increased H1B caps!

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    That is all.
  6. What are locals saying? by randomErr · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I read through the comments local people are saying:
    • * Lay-off / Buy Out older workers to hire lower pay college graduates
    • * Hiring H1B Workers
    • * Redundant technology with smaller similar companies merging into larger companies - Social Networks, photo, video. and texting applications and websites
    • * Off-shoring jobs
    --
    You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
  7. LinkedIn can't be wrong... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 4, Funny

    LinkedIn says there are 100,000+ tech jobs available in the San Francisco Bay Area.

    1. Re:LinkedIn can't be wrong... by nickovs · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The two facts are not at necessarily odds with each other. The reporting is on the number of people employed; LinkedIn tells you the number of open vacancies. The problem is that with the housing capacity tapped out and the cost of living through the roof it is becoming increasingly hard to fill the jobs that exist, so hiring is slowing down. Cities in the Bay Area from San Mateo to Sunnyvale have been building office space faster than they have been building homes and is this is the result.

      --
      If intelligent life is too complex to evolve on its own, who designed God?
  8. Dump H1B by p51d007 · · Score: 3

    Dump some of the H1B visas, send those people back to where they came from, hire U.S. citizens at a good wage. The other issue is there are too many "startups" that do nothing but drain money. They don't PRODUCE anything.

  9. Re:Let's Face the Facts... by ColdWetDog · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm sure more than three people a year die in California after receiving their tax bills for the year.

    At least the ice is sort of natural.

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    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!