Employment Heats Up in Silicon Valley

According to an article on the front page of last weekend's issue of the Wall Street Journal titled "Boomtown Redux: Job Market Heats Up in Silicon Valley," "after suffering an exodus during the dot-com bust, the region is once again a land of opportunity," with state economists expecting a net inflow into the area this year, following 5 years of job losses (185,000 in total).

Most of the new jobs are not coming from the high tech giants, such as Cisco, Sun, and Intel, but rather from thousands of small and midsize companies and startups, who are typically looking for experienced professionals who are well-versed in hot technologies and who can create and market innovative products. Basic programming and assembly-line jobs are few and far between, having been offshored years ago.

The hottest markets for jobs seem to be in highly-skilled engineering and marketing. Companies mentioned in the article as presently recruiting included Dice.com, Linear Technology Corp., Sling Media (a startup that recently closed a $46.4 million round of venture capital funding), and Good Technology, Inc.