The Pew Research center conducted a study to see how income classes have changed over time in 229 US metros. Part of the study was highlighting the 10 metros with the largest percentage of upper-income populations. "Upper income" was defined by being more than double the US median household income relative to the national average cost of living. That means that very expensive areas are adjusted downward. Despite this, the San Jose metro can in 4th on the list, with 31% of the population considered upper class and a median household income of $187,390. San Francisco was 9th on the list with 28% of residents considered upper class and a median income of $185,290.
However, I would argue that if you have a household income of $187,390 in Silicon Valley, you are not wealthy and most likely in the upper middle-class bracket based on purchasing power. Likely you are not living in an extravagant house or enjoying a lavish lifestyle. If you have kids and a mortgage, you might barely be getting by. Check out the source link below for the top 10 list and more details.
Source: Business Insider, hat tip to Barclay Livker for sending this in!
I keep talking about an impending slowdown, yet stats like these continue to slap that notion in the face. In May our unemployment level hit a 10-year low with a rate of only 3.4%. In May 2015 that figure was already exceptional at 4.2% and even April 2016 was higher at 3.7%. To put that 3.4% figure in perspective, the whole state of California is performing well right now and the average California unemployment rate is 5.2%.
A total of 5,800 jobs were added to the San Jose Metro between April and May 2016. That brings us up to 1,083,100 jobs. Now some potentially bad news--most of the gains were in professional/business services, leisure and hospitality, and financial services. We lost 400 tech jobs, which tend to have the highest salaries. The positive spin is that our economy is diversifying, which would help weather any future dips in the tech sector.
Despite signs that the economy might be slowing down, unemployment somehow is continuing to drop. The San Jose metro has reached a ridiculously low 3.7% unemployment rate this April. This is down from 3.9% in the previous month and 4.1% a year ago. It's starting to feel a lot like 1999.
Statewide, 1,800 IT jobs were lost in April. In the San Jose metro, 400 were added in April. Clearly we're still doing something right. Hopefully we can maintain these stats for a while longer.
Not one, but two new coworking spaces are coming to San Jose! Coworking allows entrepreneurs and small companies to lease a small amount of space in a shared office space with access to resources needed to run a business. Some come with cool perks like free popcorn and happy hours. However, what is really important to us is that these coworking establishments bring entrepreneurial talent into the San Jose ecosystem, where companies will hopefully decide to stay as they grow.
Downtown San Jose currently has two coworking offices that I'm aware of, NextSpace and Pacific Workplaces. The two new ones coming in though are quite a bit larger and will add a combined 105,000 SQFT of coworking space into the mix.
WeWork is the market leader of the coworking world. They are worth over $15 billion and have dozens of offices around the world. They are grabbing 75,000 SQFT across four whole floors at 75 E. Santa Clara Street. This is the same complex where the San Jose Mercury News is located. The building also happens to be just a few blocks away from the new San Jose Patent Office, a very nice luxury few entrepreneurs across the US can claim. WeWork is also going to put a sign on top of the high-rise and paint one side to bring the building to life with cool imagery.
Regus is bringing 30,000 SQFT of co-working to Tisch Tower, a 12-story building behind Santana Row. This will be the first west coast launch of Regus' "Spaces" concept, which is targeted at creatives and startups. Once those startups grow up, there will be plenty of room available in the area since Santana Row is planning to add at least 500,000 SQFT of office space.
Creating more collaborative office spaces that attract entrepreneurs could only help both our economy and reputation as an innovation leader.
San Jose State University's Career Center has been able to offer more job opportunities to SJSU students thanks to a new partnership with The San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber is playing matchmaker and helping local companies access the newest talent coming into the Silicon Valley labor pool. The benefits work both ways as 300 new organizations have been attracted to the Chamber of Commerce over the past three months because of the new partnership. It's a win-win situation that will benefit both students and employers in the Valley. For all the details check out the press release below.
San Jose, Calif.—In a continued effort to grow the local and regional economy, the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce has partnered with San Jose State University’s Career Center to create an opportunity for employers to find qualified candidates for open positions.
The partnership, a first of its kind, offers Silicon Valley businesses direct access to industry/academic partnerships, recruitment opportunities, and affordable talent acquisition services to help develop their first internship program or to fill open employment opportunities. SJSV Chamber members also gain discounted access to staffing and recruiting services by the SJSU Career Center via the only known university staffing agency in the U.S.: SJSU Spartan Staffing.
The SJSV Chamber and SJSU deploy a cross referral process upon registering with each organization, connecting businesses, non-profits, and government entities directly to each institution.
“As the region’s largest business organization, it is vital that we provide our members and the greater business community with the connections, information, resources and tools they need to be successful. The San Jose State Career Center is the perfect partnership for us creating a direct pipeline between the business community and the talent pool that keeps our economy thriving.”
- Matthew R. Mahood, San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce President & CEO
After the first three months, this partnership has attracted and referred more than 300 organizations to the Chamber, allowing members the opportunity to sustain and grow their business by hiring an intern, part-time or full-time candidate through SJSU.
As a result of the partnership, SJSU has connected approximately 250 Silicon Valley organizations to services and resources to assist them in filling internships and jobs in technology, business, government, education, architecture and design, nonprofit, and various other sectors.
SJSU refers jobs and internships to the SJSV Chamber for the Opportunity Youth Partnership and San Jose Works Initiatives; SJSU has referred 10,000+ jobs and internships in the past six months.
About the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce
The San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce is a nonprofit business association representing nearly 1,500 employers and 250,000 employees throughout the greater Silicon Valley. Its mission is to create a strong local economy, provide premier business connections and visibility, represent the interests of business to government, promote the community and initiate political and community action.
About San Jose State University
The founding campus of the 23-campus California State University system, San Jose State provides a comprehensive university education, granting bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in 134 areas of study with 110 concentrations – offered through its eight colleges.
With more than 33,000 students and nearly 4,370 employees, San Jose State continues to be an essential partner in the economic, cultural and social development of Silicon Valley and the state, annually contributing more than 7,000 graduates to the workforce.
The university is immensely proud of the accomplishments of its more than 220,000 alumni, 60 percent of whom live and work in the Bay Area.
There have been several reports floating around claiming that robots are going to make a large number of jobs obsolete. The unfortunate reality is that those reports are likely correct. However, there is a silver lining.
San Jose will feel less of an impact on the robot uprising than other cities. Why is that? Skilled labor is the least likely to be replaced in the immediate future, and that is exactly where most of San Jose's jobs lie. A secondary, almost ironic reason is that San Jose area companies are most likely to be the ones designing and developing robot hardware and software. In this context, our region might end up becoming one of the largest beneficiaries of these upcoming changes.
I'm sure you have been noticing a bit more traffic on the road over the last few months. The Bay Area economy is surging, and the San Jose Metro is leading the pack. There were a grand total of 41,200 jobs added to the California economy last month. 7,600 were in the Santa Clara County. Despite making up only 5% of California's population, San Jose landed 18% of the state's new jobs. San Francisco and San Mateo combined gained 4,600 jobs and the East Bay scored 3,400 jobs.
Of those new 7,600 jobs in the San Jose Metro, 2,300 were high-paying tech jobs. Now would be a good time to focus additional investment into infrastructure, we're going to need it.
At the 2015 Strategic Innovation Summit held by Harvard University and Dell, San Jose was proclaimed as the most future-ready economy in the country. Their definition of a future-ready economy is one that has sustainable economic output and growth potential. There are three key attributes that the study looked for:
1.) Human capital, or people equipped with the right skills to drive meaningful social and economic change.
2.) Commerce from sustainable business opportunities to continue improving entire economies for year to come. This includes collaboration, such as the formation of public-private partnerships.
3.) Infrastructure prepared to support people, businesses, and technology needed to drive growth and change.
San Jose scored well above average when it comes to human capital, having strong salaries, educational achievements, and by far the highest number of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) occupations per capita. San Jose also nailed it on commerce, having a collaborative and innovation-driven economy. Where we lost some big points was with infrastructure, particularly traffic congestion and poor public transit. Despite that, we still took the top position in the study with San Francisco coming in second and Washington DC in 3rd place.
Most people know that San Jose salaries are the highest in the country. Another well known fact is that our cost of living is also one of the highest in the country. So the big question is whether our high cost of living negates our high salaries. According to the latest stats from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics the answer is... No.
The average pay in San Jose is $75,770 per year, #1 in the country. To put that in perspective, the average pay for the #2 city on the list (San Francisco) is $64,990.
After you factor in cost of living, San Jose's average pay drops to $62,110, which is still enough for it to be the #1 highest-paying city in the country. San Francisco drops to $53,580, bringing it all the way down to #9 on the list. Durham ended up being the city closest to San Jose in the #2 spot with an average pay of $58,780 after factoring in the cost of living adjustments.
So there you have it. Even after factoring in sky-high rents and other expenses, we are still better off salary-wise than the rest of the country.
Of all the cities in the country with more than 300,000 residents, San Jose came in 7th in terms of economic growth between 2008 and 2014. In the Bay Area, San Jose was king of the castle. Oakland came in 13th place and San Francisco was 15th.
Metrics included income growth, unemployment rate decrease, and housing prices. I should also note that this study was for individual cities and not metro areas, making the results even more impressive.
For mid-sized cities of 100,000-300,000 residents, Santa Clara, Fremont, and Sunnyvale make the top 10. For cities under 100,000 residents, Milpitas, Mountain View, and Redwood City were in the top 15.
First Apple, and now Google. Momentum is quickly building in North San Jose for anchor tech companies! With little room to grow in Mountain View, Google has finally decided to consider office space in San Jose.
The company is planning to start with about 150,000 SQFT. If things go well, I would not be surprised if they expanded. North San Jose has millions and maybe even tens of millions of SQFT worth of potential office development. The SiliconBeat article also references the BART extension in Milpitas and Berryessa as one of the reasons why the North San Jose office market will get hotter over time. Completely agree. BART is going to be a huge amenity for East Bay commuters that Mountain View, Palo Alto, and Cupertino will not have easy access to.
The South Bay has the strongest job market in the US based on a new government report. In the 12 month period that ended in July, total payroll employment increased by 6.2%, giving us the fastest growing job market by a huge margin. Tacoma came in second at 5% job growth, while the San Francisco and Salt Lake City metros were tried for third at 4.4%. The East Bay did not rank in the top 10 and had a gain of 2.2%.
To add more color on this data, over the last year 60,400 jobs were added in the San Jose Metro. Half of them were high-tech jobs (presumably with high salaries). We're not just adding tons of jobs, we're adding tons of great jobs.
A recent CBS report reveals that getting hired at a high-paying Silicon Valley tech company does not require a degree from an "elite" school. In fact, Silicon Valley companies are hiring more San Jose State University alums than any other college or university. As an example, SJSU topped both Stanford and Cal for the most alums working at Apple.
What is the secret of the university's success? SJSU students have a reputation for getting stuff done. You can sit around and talk about a problem all day, or you can get your hands dirty and fix it. I imagine the prestigious schools spending more time teaching their students about theory and planning versus execution. Plus, many SJSU students are already working while studying, and nothing beats real-world experience.
The word is starting to get around. SJSU enrollment is up to 33,000 students this year, and many of them are coming internationally from countries like India. The University is building a global brand and an outstanding reputation, something that will benefit San Jose and our local economy for generations!
Source: CBS, Big hat tip to Dan De La O for sending this in!
Based on metrics such as job growth, availability of part-time employment, and summer activities, the San Jose metro was ranked as the second best city for summer jobs. There are nearly 400 service sector positions currently available in San Jose, and you can't beat the weather or the variety of festivals and activities we have throughout the summer.
Denver was at the top of the list, while my two favorite competitors (San Francisco and New York City) did not rank in the top 10.
According to new government statistics, the annual growth rates for total payroll jobs in Santa Clara County are up a staggering 6.1% year-over-year. This makes it by far the largest percentage gain in the country. The only metro that even came close was San Francisco/San Mateo, which posted a 4.9% gain. 3rd place was Orlando at 4.3% followed by Riverside up 4.1% and finally Dallas rounding out the top 5 at 4.1%.
According to a new annual survey by Glassdoor, the San Jose Metro came in #1 in the country for job opportunities! San Jose has a total of 51,439 job openings and a median base salary of $99,000. The best part is that wasn't the only job related statistic we scored high in. We ranked #2 when it comes to job satisfaction.
After aggregating all of the metrics, our overall job ranking was #7 out of the largest 50 metros in the US. We were brought down by having the 5th lowest cost of living in the survey. My question is which are the metros with a higher cost of living? I'm surprised we weren't at the very bottom of the list.
While the cost of living is high, the sheer number of opportunities, high salaries, amazing weather, and great people more than make up for it.
In what should come as little surprise, San Jose was ranked as the top metro in the US for tech jobs. NerdWallet took a look at the largest 370 metro areas and analyzed the number of tech jobs for every 1,000 employees in the metro, the annual mean salary, and the median cost-of-living. Despite astronomical housing costs, San Jose took 1st place by a mile.
San Jose had far and away the greatest number of tech jobs per 1,000 employees (126.27) as well as the largest average tech salary in the country ($130k). San Francisco--despite including tech-heavy San Mateo and Redwood City--only managed 6th place. New York came in 67th.
To see the full list, head over to the source link below.
A huge tenant is coming to South San Jose and bring with it 500 or so jobs. BAE Systems currently has their US headquarters in Santa Clara on Coleman Ave. That site is going to be demolished soon in order to make way for the Coleman Highline office project, forcing BAE to move elsewhere.
The new BAE headquarters will be at 6331 and 6311 San Ignacio Ave., blocks away from Lightrail and Highway 85. There is also a substantial residential population in the area... hundreds of thousands of people live within a five mile radius.
Needless to say, this deal is a big financial win for San Jose. The company will bring a solid amount of tax dollars and high-paying engineering jobs to our city, as well as either a short or reverse commute for most of its employees. For more details, hit the source link below!
Every year Join Venture puts out a Silicon Valley Index that discusses a variety of topics from the economy to governance and challenges that our region faces. There are always tons of interesting stats in these publications.
Lynn Peithman Stock from the SVBJ has a nice breakdown of how some Silicon Valley stats compare to San Francisco over the last year:
Silicon Valley new jobs: 57,591 (11k up from the previous year)
San Francisco new jobs: 18,499 (4k down from the previous year)
Silicon Valley new patents: 17,000
San Francisco new patents: 1,900
Silicon Valley IPOs: 23
San Francisco IPOs: 5
Silicon Valley startups: 8,600
San Francisco startups: 7,400
Click here to read the entire report (or scroll down for highlights). You can also watch the video briefing below.
Highlights of the 2015 Index include:
Jobs – The number of new jobs grew by 4.1 percent, bringing the region’s job total to nearly 1.5 million. Silicon Valley added 57,951 new jobs between Q2 2013 and Q2 2014; San Francisco added another 18,499 for a total of 76,450 in Silicon Valley and San Francisco.
Investment– Venture capital investments in Silicon Valley and San Francisco shot up, reaching $14.5 billion in the first three quarters of 2014 alone – more than in any other year since 2000. San Francisco’s share was $7.1 billion, a 68 percent spike over 2013. Cleantech venture capital investments increased dramatically as well in 2014, reaching an all-time high of nearly $3.3 billion.
IPOs/M&A – 23 of the 275 U.S. Initial Public Offerings in 2014 were by Silicon Valley companies, three more than the prior year. As of Q3 2014, Silicon Valley was on pace to reach 2013 merger and acquisition activity levels, while San Francisco exceeded the number of deals in 2013 in the first three quarters of 2014 alone. During that time period, there were 560 M&A deals involving Silicon Valley companies, and 403 involving San Francisco companies.
Innovation – The number of Silicon Valley patent registrations continued to rise, reaching 16,975 in 2013 (1,910 more than the previous year). The largest share (40 percent) of the patents was in Computers, Data Processing and Information Storage, with another 24 percent in Communications.
Population – The entire Silicon Valley region (including Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties, Fremont, Union City, Newark and Scotts Valley) grew by nearly 42,000 people between January 2013 and January 2014. During that period of time, Santa Clara County was the fastest growing county in the state at 1.5 percent – nearly twice the growth rate of the state as a whole (0.9 percent) – and a few Silicon Valley cities (Campbell, Milpitas, Foster City and Morgan Hill) grew three to four times faster than the state.
Income – Average annual earnings (including wages and supplements) in Silicon Valley and San Francisco as of Q2 2014 were $116,033 and $104,881, respectively, compared to $96,663 in the nine-County Bay Area, $70,847 in California and $61,489 in the United States. Median household income in 2013 in Silicon Valley was $94,534 and $79,778 in San Francisco.
Housing – Home prices and rental rates continued to rise in 2014, with a median home sale price of $757,585 (7.5 percent higher than 2013 and more than $360,000 higher than the median price throughout the state) and an average rental rate of $2,333 per month (11 percent higher than 2013) in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties.
Commercial space – The amount of approved development hit skyscraper levels in FY 2013-14 to 12.9 million square feet – nearly twice the floor area of the Pentagon, the largest U.S. office building. This amount of net non-residential development is far more than any other year over the last decade, and is 2.6 million square feet more than the last peak in 2004.
Published annually since 1995, the Silicon Valley Index findings are reported in five major sections: People (talent flows and diversity); Economy (employment, innovation and entrepreneurship, commercial space, income); Society (preparing for economic success, early education, arts and culture, quality of health, safety); Place (environment, transportation, land use, housing); and Governance (city finances and civic engagement).
About Joint Venture Silicon Valley
Established in 1993, Joint Venture provides analysis and action on issues affecting the Silicon Valley economy and quality of life. The organization brings together established and emerging leaders—from business, government, academia, labor and the broader community—to spotlight issues, launch projects and work toward innovative solutions. For more information, visit www.jointventure.org.
San Jose has the greatest share of advanced industry employment in the country. Advanced industry includes tech, engineering, and energy jobs that drive innovation. In fact, it took first by a mile. 30% of employment in the San Jose metro is in the advanced industry sector. Seattle came in second at 16% and San Francisco was in 5th with 14%.
Why is this important? Not only are these the jobs that drive economic growth in the country, but the pay is spectacular. In 2013, workers in this sector nationwide raked in an average of $90k a year. However in Silicon Valley, that number is doubled to an astounding $180k per year.
