Friday, May 20, 2016

The Best US Cities For Jobs... For Now

The top cities are dominated by the tech community, with San Jose, CA and San Francisco, CA taking the top two spots in the overall ranking.
Here is the list of top 25 cities based on their overall ranking - Bloomberg points out that San Jose has risen from No. 7 to No. 1

As Bloomberg reports, Glassdoor Inc., a career website, published its list of the top 25 cities for jobs based on factors such as salary, job satisfaction, and cost of living.
Breaking down the details, here is the list for the median salary component - again led by tech heavy cities such as San Jose and San Francisco.


Job satisfaction...


And cost of living... note how incredible the cost of living is in San Jose and San Francisco, surely indicative of the run up in tech companies over the past few years in Silicon Valley, as those high wages and overzealous cash infusions by venture capitalists led to higher cost of living.

We assume this excludes living in a box in someone's front room.
Established tech communities such as San Jose, San Francisco, as well as up and coming tech cities such as Seattle, Boston, and Austin dominate the lists. "This demonstrates why so many people are looking to move to the San Francisco Bay area: Job satisfaction, work-life balance, and hiring opportunities are unparalleled compared to anywhere else in the country. It's not a surprise to see cities like Seattle and Austin at the top since they all have rising technology communities, great institutions for higher education and research, as well as affordable neighborhoods." said Dr. Andrew Chamberlain, chief economist at Glassdoor.
While we're happy for all of these tech heavy cities making this list, we would caution those reading not to pack up and head to the West Coast just yet. While Silicon Valley has undoubtedly had a good run, the reality is that the second great tech bubble has popped, and impacts are only just beginning to be felt.
* * *
As a refresher for those who are curious, here is a quick timeline chronicling the bursting of the second tech bubble. We first pointed out back in January of 2014 when venture capitalists first started to grow overly speculative and began to pour large sums of money into tech start-ups that the second tech bubble had arrived - at that time there were more than 30 companies in the US, Europe, and China that were valued at $1 billion or more by the private markets.
Our analysis was confirmed a year later when investment bankers had to deliver the news to Dropbox that there was no way it could IPO at its $10 billion private valuation, let alone provide any upside to recent investors.
Then in January of this year we pointed out that as markets were crashing, more and more "unicorns" (companies with a private valuation in excess of $1 billion) were going to be forced to raise capital at lower valuations, and these down rounds would eventually lead to firms having to admit that they'd have to go to market at a much more humble valuation than once thought.
Only one month later, we showed that the bursting of the bubble had made its way to the real economy by way of mass layoffs at all of these once up and coming technology companies. One executive recruiter said at the time "I think what we're seeing is bigger than a small correction. Everyone thinks it will be different this time, but it never is."
And finally, just today we reported that the aggregate of all of the aforementioned events has now made its way into Silicon Valley's real estate market. Luxury homes are now staying on the market longer, and the reality is finally starting to hit home: "The peak is behind us, and that's becoming clearer and clearer to builders and buyers" said an agent of real estate consultancy John Burns.

No comments:

Post a Comment