A new report, just released by the Joint Venture Silicon Valley Network, says that for the first time since 2001, Silicon Valley employment increased in 2006. The valley added 33,000 new jobs in 2006, for a 3% increase.
There was particular growth in creative and software industries, but declines in hardware and corporate offices. [...] The creative industry includes jobs like lawyers, accountants, engineers and those in advertising.
Wait a minute. Lawyers are creative?
The report also confirmed the mad rush of venture funding to the alternative energy business.
Venture capital funding to clean technology firms increased 266 percent last year, investing about $300 million by the third quarter alone.
Meanwhile, Silicon Valley snared 27 percent of the total venture capital funding in the country, Henton said.
“We’re back to where we were in 1998 in venture capital (funding), he said. “Silicon Valley is reinventing itself and you see it in a number of these venture capital dollars.”
Household income also increased in 2005, for the first time since 2001, by 6.5% to $76,300. However, even in the current slower housing market, rental prices increased. And still only a quarter of first-time home buyers can afford to buy the average home in Silicon Valley, down from 44% in 2003.