By Doug Bartholomew

"The San Francisco Bay Area will be the fastest growing area in California for a while," a leading economist, who tracks the Golden State's economy, tells Dice News.

Steven Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto, believes the hottest area for jobs growth will be in IT-oriented positions. "The growth areas for jobs will be in software and social networking - not computer hardware," Levy says. "The growth will be in the new areas, for instance, developing a service or designing a good, people-intensive activities. These jobs will require some kind of engineering background."

Most Software Executives Plan Hiring

Ninety percent of software industry executives expect to add employees this year, according to a survey sponsored by Intacct, an online accounting service. Some 23 percent expect a "significant" increase in staff, while about 71 percent believe their companies will return to their pre-recession level of business this year, if they haven't already.  Much of this growth in jobs will be in the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley.  

Big Tech Companies Adding Staff

A year ago, it was the big companies that were cutting staff and laying off. Now it's the opposite, as a number of large technology firms are looking to add staff in the nascent recovery, which already appears to be favoring the information technology sector. Among the larger Bay Area companies hiring are Hewlett-Packard, Apple, Juniper Networks and Nokia. For instance, this week HP's looking for an SSM software developer in Cupertino and a senior UNIX/Linux systems administrator in San Mateo.