Business View - February 2016 11
Thriving Silicon Valley’s unemployment rate has
reached an all-time low since the dot com bubble.
According to the California Employment Devel-
opment Department (EDD), the number of em-
ployed Californians increased by 11,000 persons to
17,910,000, in November 2015. This was California’s
61st consecutive civilian employment increase.
Each quarter, West Valley Staffing Group (WVSG)
surveys a wide range of Silicon Valley hiring manag-
ers about their upcoming hiring needs. The hiring
managers come from different industries, includ-
ing high tech, manufacturing, electronics, finance,
semi-conductor, medical, aerospace, and alternative
energy. Each participant is asked, “Do you expect
your hiring needs to increase, remain steady, or de-
crease in the future?”
Hundreds of hiring managers were surveyed this
quarter, with 86 percent predicting a hiring increase
or expecting to remain steady during the first quar-
ter of 2016. Only 13 percent of hiring managers ex-
pect their hiring needs to decrease.
“The expansion in Silicon Valley has created a posi-
tive domino effect,” said Charlie Allport, Executive
Vice President of WVSG. “As companies expand
and more jobs are filled, Silicon Valley’s economy
strengthens, attracting more people into the area to
be a part of the flourishing economy.”
The lost jobs during the Great Recession have al-
most been fully recovered in certain regions of
the Bay Area. According to the U.S. Bureau of La-
bor Statistics, professional and business services,
construction, health care, and information technol-
ogy have seen exponential growth. The technology
boom continues to help the employment growth in
Silicon Valley which is expected to hit full capacity
by mid-2016.
