Silicon Valley’s population decline is the highest since the dot-com crash

by time news

Silicon Valley (California), where the headquarters of leading IT corporations are located, in 2021 experienced the most significant population decline since the collapse of the dot-coms, MarketWatch writes, citing Joint Venture Silicon Valley, an analytics company.

As it turned out, the population of Silicon Valley decreased by 40,000 people last year. During this time, only 5,560 people moved into it, which is almost three times less than in 2020, and 72% less than in 2019. At the same time, two-thirds of those leaving the valley move to other cities in California, the study says.

As a result, the population of the area, which includes 39 cities in four different counties in the San Francisco Bay Area, has declined for the first time in more than a decade, said Joint Venture Silicon Valley CEO Russell Hancock. In 2021, 3.07 million people permanently lived there compared to 3.08 million a year earlier. The number of immigrants arriving in Silicon Valley from overseas last year was just under 3,000, down 64% from 2020 levels and 89% off the 2001 record. Hancock attributes this to covid restrictions and the tightening of US immigration policy during the presidency of Donald Trump.

At the same time, the fall in population did not affect either the inflow of capital into the area or the growth of the technology industry, analysts emphasize. Thus, in 2021, a record low unemployment rate (2.9%) was recorded here and 15,000 new jobs were created. There are also record high volumes of venture financing ($95 billion) and market capitalization of IT companies based here ($14 trillion).

You may also like

Leave a Comment