Silicon Valley is a region in flux, but one that maintains strong economic underpinnings, despite layoffs, the pandemic and the dramatic increase in working from home, according to an annual report from Joint Venture Silicon Valley, a nonprofit business and community group.
“There is no way we can construe this as a crisis,” said Russell Hancock, the group’s CEO, in a press briefing on Tuesday about the Silicon Valley Index. “The only way we can accurately depict this is as an adjustment.”
The report defines Silicon Valley as the counties of San Mateo and Santa Clara plus Fremont, Newark and Union City in Alameda County, and Scotts Valley in Santa Cruz County. That sets up a contrast between it and that other local center of the tech industry: San Francisco.
Silicon Valley — which obviously is larger both in geographic area and in population — has 9.6 percent of California’s jobs and 13.1 percent of the state’s gross domestic product, versus 4.1 percent and 5.9 percent in San Francisco, respectively, for instance. It also outweighs the city in factors such as hotel and office development, and patent registration.
However, San Francisco leads the region in venture capital, (40.3 percent of California VC vs. 29.2 percent in Silicon Valley), angel investments (34 percent vs. 15.4 percent) and startups (34 percent vs. 17.6 percent). When it comes to private companies that are worth at least $1 billion, called unicorns, and those worth at least $10 billion, called decacorns, San Francisco also has the prime spot. It contains 53.7 percent of California unicorn and decacorn companies, versus 28.5 percent in Silicon Valley.
Here are some other economic touchstones from the report, which was released Tuesday:
Employment and layoffs: While the drumbeat of news about tech layoffs is all-too-familiar, the report puts them in context, noting that Silicon Valley added 88,000 jobs from mid-2021 to mid 2022, a growth rate of 5 percent that outpaced the nation.
“The economy is growing substantially,” Hancock said. “Tech is driving that growth; it added more than 16,000 of those new jobs.” Since 2010, tech has grown about twice as fast as other sectors of the economy.
The layoffs’ local impact amounted to about 11,000 jobs as of January, he said, representing just 1 percent of the Silicon Valley workforce and 2 percent of its tech workforce.
Hancock repeated the well-known refrain that tech companies scaled up massively during the pandemic, then saw waning demand as the health crisis moderated, and had to recalibrate.
Still, he said, “Tech is going through a painful period; I’d even call it an existential crisis.”
One big concern: “Tech hasn’t had a game-changing product or super-profitable idea in about a decade.” Apple’s premier product, the iPhone, is about 15 years old, for instance. He pointed to artificial intelligence as the possible source of the Next Big Thing.
Remote work, population and real estate: Silicon Valley’s knowledge workers represent the nation’s highest concentration of remote workers, which has a domino effect on everything from public transit to commercial real estate to supporting businesses.
The share of Silicon Valley workers who perform job duties at home was 35 percent in 2022, up from 28 percent a year earlier — and from 6 percent in 2019. For Caltrain, the impact was stark: It now has only 4,100 daily riders, down 92 percent, compared to 67,000 pre-pandemic. Beleaguered BART actually looks good by contrast, as it has recovered 35 percent of its pre-pandemic riders.
But unlike in San Francisco, where office vacancy rates are soaring and many companies are seeking to sublet their space, the impact has not been as severe on Silicon Valley commercial spaces — at least not yet. Leasing activity was up 2 percent to 24.8 million square feet, although the average amount of space per lease was smaller. Office rental rates rose in 2022, although less than inflation.
Silicon Valley’s population fell by almost 40,000 residents from mid-2020 to mid-2021, the highest decline ever recorded. Much of that was due to a 47 percent increase in people moving elsewhere, a decrease in foreign immigration as well as declining birth rates and increasing death rates.
“Out-migration” rates — people moving away — clocked at 47,000 last year, similar to those during the dot-com bust in 2001.
Interestingly, a quarter of those people who left simply relocated elsewhere in the Bay Area and a fifth moved to nearby parts of northern California.
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