Silicon Valley Hiring Reaching Dot-Com Boom Heights

By Barbara E. Hernandez

| Thursday, Feb 7, 2013 | Updated 1:20 PM PDT

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Silicon Valley Hiring Reaching Dot-Com Boom Heights

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LONDON - JULY 02: In this photo illustration the Twitter website is displayed on a laptop computer on July 2, 2009 in London. The social network site, started in 2006 in California as a sideline project, has grown into a global brand becoming one of the fastest growing phenomenas of the Internet. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

A new study finds that Silicon Valley's job growth has jumped to numbers not seen since the dot-come boom and San Francisco has become a new technology center.

The 2013 Silicon Valley Index, an annual study by the Joint Venture Silicon Valley and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, reports that the Bay Area added 92,000 jobs and that Santa Clara and San Mateo counties had almost half of those jobs, the San Jose Mercury News reported. The 42,000 jobs are considered "prodigious" according to Russell Hancock, president of Joint Venture Silicon Valley.

"Employment growth in Silicon Valley is impressive, very impressive," Hancock told the Mercury News. "Some might even say the job growth is cause for euphoria."

San Francisco has also risen as a new tech hub, and now is being included in what is typically known as Silicon Valley. Several companies, such as Twitter and Square, make their headquarters in San Francisco and it is increasingly attracting startups. Both Santa Clara and San Mateo counties increased job totals by 3.6 percent, while San Francisco sported a 3.7 percent rise.

The growth shows that San Francisco is now just as important to technology in the region as the geographic Silicon Valley.

Although job growth is good, there is a growing disparity in high and low incomes. Also, many people of color seems to left out of the growing job market. From 2009 to 2011, incomes rose for whites and Asians, but African-American and Latinos had incomes fall. African-Americans saw their incomes fall 18 percent while Latinos lost 5 percent. "Silicon Valley is two valleys," Hancock said. "There is a valley of haves, and a valley of have-nots."

Despite the growth in the tech sectors, not surprising much of it has seemed to benefit both Asian and white engineers or techies most. While the report suggested that other industries, such as construction, have also been helped the boom in job growth, the numbers don't suggest that it's helping all of the Bay Area. These jobs are for the highly skilled and those without those skills will find that no amount of job growth in the tech sector will help them.