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Creativity Key Trait In High-Tech Employment

That’s the gist of a report by Pui-Wing Tam in Tuesday's The Wall Street Journal [subscription required], which says job growth has returned to the valley five years after the dot-com bubble burst. This time, however, it’s a different kind of growth than in past recoveries.

“Past tech recoveries tended to bring new lower-skilled jobs as well as high-skill jobs,” Tam writes. “This time, tech firms--from big companies like Hewlett-Packard Co. to mid- and small-size firms such as Netflix, Adobe Systems Inc., and SanDisk Corp.--have moved lower-skill jobs out of the Silicon Valley area to cheaper locations, or outsourced them to foreign countries. The new jobs they are creating locally often require specialized skills in engineering and design. Young companies like Google Inc. are simply starting out hiring at the high end, further shifting the overall balance.”

Citing a January study by the not-for-profit Joint Venture Silicon Valley, a group representing businesses and government agencies, the paper reported that job growth came chiefly in the category of creative and innovation services, including companies in research and development, scientific and technical consulting, and industrial design. But the number of jobs in electronic-component manufacturing and semiconductor-equipment manufacturing plunged.

The Silicon Valley experience suggests that demand for high-tech skills is bright and that highly creative information technologists will find jobs. "Ten years ago, this was an engineering valley that pumped out chips and computers," economist Doug Henton, who co-authored a report on Silicon Valley employment, told Tam. "Now it's all about creative tech and staying on the cutting edge."

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