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San Francisco: No Slowdown to Tech-Hiring Boom
No, the San Francisco tech market isn’t cooling down anytime soon. New data from IT staffing firm Robert Half Technology suggests that tech employment in Fog City is up 17 percent year-over-year, outpacing the city’s overall employment growth rate of 4.6 percent during the same period. “It’s going to continue, and it’s going to be more and more difficult to hire very skilled IT professionals because at this point you’re hiring them away from your competitors,” firm Director Dakin Gunn told the San Francisco Business Times. Click here for developer jobs. In addition to a host of new startups, well-established tech firms such as Salesforce, Google and Twitter are major employment drivers within San Francisco’s municipal limits. Just outside the city, in enclaves such as Silicon Valley, tech-employment demand is likewise high, with startups reportedly willing to shell out as much as $20,000 for employee referrals. While this rising tide has indeed floated a lot of boats, there’s rising concern among many in San Francisco that a wave of highly monetized workers is driving up housing prices, making the city unaffordable to those not involved in the technology sector. Anti-gentrification protests have erupted in front of luxury condos and the massive houses of tech executives. The tech industry’s long-timers also remember when the dot-com bubble burst in 2001, leaving thousands of people unemployed and hundreds of startups shuttered; for all the euphoria attached to today’s wave of IPOs and high valuations, they’ll tell you, there lurks a nasty downside that could flip the market virtually overnight. But for many of those with the right skills who live in San Francisco, it’s hard to argue that the good times aren’t rolling merrily right along. For those who want to get into the industry, especially on the software and Web side of things, check out Dice’s list of the most desired developer skills.
