Report: Midwage jobs vanish in Silicon Valley

[Newsjock]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

... The index is an annual snapshot of Silicon Valley, which is defined as all of San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, plus Scotts Valley in the Santa Cruz area and Fremont, Newark and Union City in the East Bay.

For the first time, this report documents an alarming fact: The middle fell out of the region's payroll between 2002 and 2006.

Federal and state jobs data show that 62,050 midwage jobs - defined as having salaries between $30,000 and $80,000 - vanished during that four-year period, according to the report.

During the same four years, employers added 66,200 jobs that paid less than $30,000. And despite bullish times for the likes of Google and Apple, Silicon Valley employers added just 16,790 jobs during that period that paid more than $80,000.


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/19/BUI2V2SGD.DTL

[ixion]

1. and a massive chunk of those jobs went to India

:grr:

[RuleOfNah]

3. The next report could be scarier.

Design/marketing/branding work is now being outsourced, accounting and legal too. Even tech project management/architecture is being outsourced.

That's a handful of expensive decision makers here, every one else somewhere else (loyalties included). Like the military, without the weapons.

[jaybeat]

2. I'd bet the same is happening all up and down the west coast (nt)

[reggie the dog]

4. everywhere

where wages were good.

[lovuian]

5. they vanished right to India

now Americans have lost wages and jobs
Now we are heading into a Depression

[UpInArms]

6. will the Knuckledragger do a skit looking for them like he did for the WMDs?

"where oh where did all those good paying jobs go?"

[CubicleGuy]

7. One of those jobs was mine

I ended up on unemployment at the end of 2002 (goodbye $80K+ salary), and only in 2006, after working a temp job at $16/hr for a few months did I get hired on at less than $50K.

A $30K hit to the income is not easy to handle. I'm still trying to work my way back up into the comfortable middle class life I had back then, but it seems that everyone likes to kick you when you're down, and the kicks haven't ended yet.

[spinbaby]

8. You can't live in that area on less than $30,000

How are all those people making it?