Santa Clara County is the best job market in the country when it comes to hiring opportunities and No. 2 when it comes to employee satisfaction, according to a new survey by Glassdoor, but is near the bottom of the rankings when it comes to the cost of living for workers.
All told, Santa Clara County is No. 7 out of 50 metro areas in the United States in a first-annual survey from Glassdoor, an online site that enables employees — current and former — to review companies and corporate management. What kept Santa Clara County from being No. 1 overall? The South Bay region was ranked a dismal No. 46 out of 50 when it came to cost of living.
The best hiring opportunities in the country are in Santa Clara County, said Andrew Chamberlain, chief economist with Glassdoor.
The seemingly relentless surge of the technology sector is fueling the high ranking for Santa Clara County.
There are a lot of job openings and a lot of job satisfaction in Santa Clara County, Chamberlain said.
The median salary in Santa Clara County was $99,000, according to the survey. But much of that is chewed up by median home prices that are surging past the $750,000 level, according to real estate researcher CoreLogic, and rising 8.4 percent a year.
The median salary in the San Francisco-East Bay-Peninsula-Marin region was $70,000, Glassdoor determined.
The home values in the Bay Area are sky-high compared to other cities in the survey, Chamberlain said.
In contrast, median home prices were $200,000 in Raleigh, N.C. and $138,000 in Kansas City.
The cities that show up high on the list break into two categories, you have your major technology hubs, and you have cities that are small and fast-growing and are small tech magnets, Chamberlain said.
Raleigh, N.C. was No. 1, Kansas City was No. 2, Oklahoma City was No. 3, Austin, Tex. was No. 4, Seattle was No. 5, Salt Lake City was No. 6, Santa Clara County was No. 7, Louisville, Ky. was No. 8, San Antonio, Tex. was No. 9 and Washington D.C. was No. 10. The San Francisco-East Bay-San Mateo County and Marin County region was No. 12, just behind No. 11 St. Louis and No. 13 Columbus Ohio. Dallas-Ft. Worth was No. 14 and Boston was No. 15. New York City was No. 41.
Among other California metro areas outside of the Bay Area, San Diego was No. 38, Los Angeles was No. 43, Sacramento was No. 45, and the Riverside-San Bernardino region was ranked at the bottom, at No. 50.
The tech boom is spreading far and wide, Chamberlain said. The expansion of the tech industry is transforming the United States, but so the services industry is as well.
Here s a link to the report: http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/best-cities-jobs/
Rosa Gonzales conducts the instrument testing process on a completed da Vinci Surgical System at the headquarters and manufacturing plant of Intuitive Surgical in Sunnyvale, Calif. on Friday, Aug.10, 2012. The da Vinci Surgical System is a robotic surgical system for minimally invasive surgery. The company has been part of a growing trend to keep manufacturing here in the Bay Area where skilled workers and innovation are close at hand. (Gary Reyes/ Staff)
