Fact of the Week: California’s Tech Sector Has Added Only About 6,000 Jobs Since the Start of COVID

Source: Joseph Politano, "California is Losing Tech Jobs," Apricitas Economics, April 14, 2024.

Commentary: A recent post by Joseph Politano, author of the Apricitas Economics blog, analyzed how the job market in the tech sector has evolved since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, his analysis suggests that job market for tech jobs has fared much worse than the United States overall.

Politano's first major finding notes that tech jobs overall have not declined in recent years. Rather, net job growth has merely slowed after reaching a high point in the latter half of 2022. In particular, Politano notes that the United States overall has added around 570,000 jobs in the tech sector since January 2020. When looking at specific subsectors, computer programming and computer systems design has seen the largest net growth in employment since January 2020. However, when zooming in on California, the home of Silicon Valley, job growth by the same measure was rather stagnant. Politano's analysis found that tech sector jobs in California have grown by only about 6,000 since January 2020. When put in terms of state-level shares, California's share of all tech sector jobs has declined from around 19 percent in early 2020 to about 16 percent now.

When looking at where the tech sector jobs are growing, Politano found that Texas, Washington, and Florida saw the largest growth. In particular, those states have gained 25,000 jobs, 22,000 jobs, and 20,000 jobs, respectively, since December 2019. When looking at payrolls, those same states saw their tech sector payrolls increase by 24 percent, 18 percent, and 27 percent, respectively, since December 2019. By contrast, California's tech sector payroll only grew by about 5 percent over that same period. Politano also found significant increases in tech sector payroll in states other than the aforementioned states. In particular, Politano's analysis found that Tennessee, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Georgia saw their tech sector payrolls grow by 43 percent, 28 percent, 19 percent, 15 percent, and 14 percent, respectively, since December 2019.