For the first time since 2011, Silicon Valley lost more U.S. residents than it gained. According to the Silicon Valley Competitiveness and Innovation Project, the region lost more than 7,500 residents last year, The Wall Street Journal’s‘Digits’ blog reports.
The region's incredibly high cost of living, especially on the housing front, is causing many U.S. workers to look for employment elsewhere. Cities like Seattle, Wash, and Austin, Texas, which are also seen as tech hubs, had net gains of 17,000 U.S. workers and 720 U.S. workers respectively.
While the amount of workers in Silicon Valley is still growing, many of them are highly educated foreign-born workers. As more U.S. citizens leave the area, it shines some light on the area's problem of sustaining its population, mainly because of its exorbitant housing costs.
The slowdown in the tech sector isn’t helping matters in Silicon Valley either, as many companies, such as Yahoo and Twitter, have announced layoffs. If the region does not look forward and adjust its system to make housing more affordable, future economic growth will be hindered considerably, says the former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Henry Cisneros.
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