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Uploaded: Thursday, August 13, 2009, 9:33 AM

Silicon Valley employment lags, but salaries rise
New report says six-county region lost jobs after the 'dot-com bubble' burst, but pay has grown

Posted by Greg, a resident of the Downtown North neighborhood, on Aug 13, 2009 at 12:02 pm

So those nerds at Facebook and HP are averaging $132,000 per year? No wonder home prices in Palo Alto are so high.

Posted by JamesBondy, a resident of the Community Center neighborhood, on Aug 13, 2009 at 1:37 pm

These figures SEEMS WRONG: 2 many jobs outsources to AZ, TX & India, China/BRIC; jobless are hi, not even hiring much, don't see most avg ppl earn $135k/yr, otherwise why SV is 2nd or CA has 13 cities out of 20 worst unemployment city & Ca face budget crisis,all are messed; CA seems has NO FUTURE [Portion removed by Palo Alto Online staff.]

Posted by Look at the source data, a resident of the Adobe-Meadows neighborhood, on Aug 13, 2009 at 4:01 pm

The BLS has a lot of very very useful data. Go to Web Link and you can look up average pay by occuption and county.

Posted by resident, a resident of the Greenmeadow neighborhood, on Aug 14, 2009 at 10:37 am

Well paid senior managers typically don't lay themselves off. The average higher salary may be a function of laying-off the lower paid workers. You then divide the remaining number of workers into the sum of these higher salaries and it could give rise to the cheery headline that salaries are rising, even though they're not. But maybe the study somehow controlled for this false positive in their study design.

Posted by without, a resident of the Greenmeadow neighborhood, on Aug 14, 2009 at 3:49 pm

I have been out of work for over a year. I have little luck finding potential positions, do not hear back from employers, and salaries I have been offered have been lower than what I was making. I find Palo Alto to be a veritable sink hole, and am sad that I grew up in this town.

Posted by Marty, a resident of the Old Palo Alto neighborhood, on Aug 16, 2009 at 5:11 pm

The folks at the top always award themselves pay increases. They deserve them for cleverly laying off the minions.

That's a good point about the average pay being derived from the few high paid people left. It's a bit like the alleged drop in unemployment figures when discouraged claimants drop of the rolls or people lose their eligibility for continuing unemployment benefits.

Posted by geez, a resident of the Meadow Park neighborhood, on Aug 17, 2009 at 2:59 pm

Wow...so much vitriol for the people who grow businesses, and grow employment.

Tell you what, why don't we simply take everything above the minimum wage that anyone earns this year, then outlaw making above $7.50 per hour, regardless of what you do, and see how long our society lasts? THAT would fix 'em!!

Been there, done that, for anyone who wishes to remember history. Look up the history of Russia, China and ..oh yes, how about modern day Cuba.

BTW, the unemployed get "dropped" from the unemployed list when they stop looking for work, not when they lose their eligibility. Why would someone stop looking for work? Think about it.

Posted by Justin, a resident of the Palo Verde neighborhood, on Aug 31, 2009 at 10:16 pm

What about the city workers who earn way more than that? And, they get pensions. I don't think there are many if any tech workers with pensions. And, city workers get health insurance without having to pay anything. Ask tech workers what they get.

Plus guaranteed yearly pay increases? We're lucky to not be on the layoff list as tech workers.

And, a ratio of one manager for every four people in the city? Gads, at the very, very large high tech companies, teams are much larger under one manager.

How many of you out there are getting pensions or will get a pension? Why are city workers getting paid such high salaries? I think the 11.8% unemployment rate in June 2009 says there are a whole bunch of very qualified, highly skilled tech workers who would love to work for the city. We'll innovate, create new things (hey, we worked in start ups with small budgets) and be extremely good workers (tech workers don't get all of the federal holidays off so you get extra days from us too).