Silicon Valley Workers Are Young

The average media age of an American worker is 42.3, but for some in the tech industry, it's much lower. The youngest in Silicon Valley were found at Facebook and Zynga, where both median ages are a youthful 28, according to a report.

The news comes from PayScale, a company that provides industry income information online, reported that tech companies tended to have the youngest workers. Google's median age was 29, while AOL, Blizzard Entertainment and Infosys's median age was 30. Hewlett-Packard came at the end of the pack with an average age of 41, the New York Times reported. (According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics only retail clothing and shoe stores and restaurants have workers under 30, so tech workers have something in common there.)

Women also only made up less than a third (30 percent) of the workforce, meaning that the workforce is young and overwhelmingly male -- probably not a surprise to anyone working in Silicon Valley.
 
The companies with the oldest workers were:  I.B.M. Global Services, Oracle (both 38), Dell (37), Sony and Nokia (both 36). The youngest workers were found at Epic Games, a video game developer in Cary, N.C., where the median age was 26.
 
“The firms that are growing or innovating around new areas tend to have younger workers,” Katie Bardaro, lead economist at PayScale, said in a statement. “Older companies that aren’t changing with the times get older workers.”
 
If what Badaro says is correct, then it makes sense why so many are making up the the Silicon Valley workforce are young. Most are coming to the area brimming with startup ideas, or helping others to achieve an innovative product.
 
 
 
 
 
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