San Francisco's Tech Industry is Surging But Tech Workers Are Moving Away
San Francisco’s surging tech industry has been a blessing and a curse. While the influx of tech startups and the success of Silicon Valley corporations like Facebook and Apple have boosted the economy, real estate prices have also skyrocketed and traffic has worsened significantly as a result. According to The Next Web, these changes are prompting tech companies and workers alike to consider moving elsewhere. But where are they moving?
Census data lists Seattle, Portland, Phoenix, Austin, Dallas, and multiple cities in Florida as the places with the highest net in-migration, or a rate of more people coming than leaving. For tech workers, Seattle and Austin are hubs for tech-related jobs and the cost of living is lower than that of San Francisco.
It’s no wonder that Silicon Valley residents are being driven away by the region’s high cost of living. The median cost of a San Francisco home has hit $1.5 million, and $105,300 is considered low income for a household of four. For the U.S. as a whole, the low-income limit is $24,000. In contrast, Seattle has a median home cost of $722,000, which isn’t cheap, but it’s way cheaper than SF.
The high cost of living in the Bay Area has also fueled another trend: more workers doing their jobs from home. According to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report, the percentage of people who work remotely has increased over the past decades. In 2015, 38 percent of people in managerial positions and 35 percent of professionals worked from home at least part of the time.