Silicon Valley is losing its position as a top area for technology workers, particularly as some of the area's top companies announce layoffs and cuts to pay and benefits. Bloomberg.com reports that Silicon Valley has been hard hit by the recession, with unemployment above the national average and 90,000 jobs lost between the second quarters of 2008 and 2009. Further, companies are eliminating stock options, downsizing staff and instituting pay and benefits cuts, all while the cost of living in the area remains high. Instead, workers are jumping ship to areas like Huntsville, Ala., and Austin, Texas, where companies are tapping into a surge in federal government funding.
Still, I wonder if information technology workers also are increasingly looking to federal employment opportunities in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere in the country. While it's possible that the pay may not stack up to that of many Silicon Valley companies, the job security, interesting missions and generous pay and benefits packages at federal agencies must be extremely attractive to these IT workers. The question is, are federal agencies effectively pushing forward to recruit and retain this group of highly-skilled workers?
Brittany Ballenstedt
Brittany Ballenstedt writes Nextgov's Wired Workplace blog, which delves into the issues facing employees who work in the federal information technology sector. Before joining Nextgov, Brittany covered federal pay and benefits issues as a staff correspondent for Government Executive and served as an associate editor for National Journal's Technology Daily. She holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from Mansfield University and originally hails from Pennsylvania. She currently lives near Travis Air Force Base, Calif., where her husband is stationed.
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