Cost of living vs. income; any better in OC? (Los Angeles: job market, bankruptcy)

[lmh182]

I've heard lots of comments on here about how salaries in San Diego don't off-set the high cost of living. I'm wondering if it's any better in Orange county? I know it's still really expensive to live there. I assume it's more expensive than San Diego...? But is the cost of living to salary ratio better there?

Thanks.

[esmith143]

OC is more expensive than SD, as far as I know, and incomes don't offset the difference.

[cruitr]

I have two friends who live in North County SD and work in OC. Best of both worlds: cheaper living and a great income.

[NYSD1995]

OC has better job opportunities. You have a number of job centers in Irvine-Costa Mesa, Long Beach, 405 corridor, and all the way up to LA where many people commute in. Multiple major business HQ's and industrial operations. None of that exists in San Diego. If you are a white-collar worker making over six figures, your opportunities in San Diego county are extremely limited. If you want to make over 130k, it is almost impossible to do in SD. That is why people deal with OC and LA despite the (considerable) downside to SD.

I can tell you that from recent job searches, many employers in San Diego want to pay 75k for jobs that pay over 100k in OC/LA (software development).

[Encinitan]

Originally Posted by Sassberto

OC has better job opportunities. You have a number of job centers in Irvine-Costa Mesa, Long Beach, 405 corridor, and all the way up to LA where many people commute in. Multiple major business HQ's and industrial operations. None of that exists in San Diego. If you are a white-collar worker making over six figures, your opportunities in San Diego county are extremely limited. If you want to make over 130k, it is almost impossible to do in SD. That is why people deal with OC and LA despite the (considerable) downside to SD.

I can tell you that from recent job searches, many employers in San Diego want to pay 75k for jobs that pay over 100k in OC/LA (software development).

I've lived and worked in both OC and SD and In my line of work (web development and legal marketing) I didn't find that I made more (the same or less, in fact) than in SD. Maybe it was just me and my situation was not the norm. And doesn't Sorrento Valley and the Golden Triangle sort of rival some of the OC employment centers you cited?

[NYSD1995]

Originally Posted by Encinitan

I've lived and worked in both OC and SD and In my line of work (web development and legal marketing) I didn't find that I made more (the same or less, in fact) than in SD. Maybe it was just me and my situation was not the norm. And doesn't Sorrento Valley and the Golden Triangle sort of rival some of the OC employment centers you cited?

It all depends on what you do and who you want to work for. If you are talking about agency work with mom-n-pop web shops or small businesses then there is no difference between OC and SD. They both pay low and have limited opportunity. There are a few niches where San Diego stands out - life sciences and defense-related R&D. San Diego is also great town for entrepreneurs and small business owners who wish to tap into the regional economy of OC / LA without actually living there. But beyond that, we have little that is comparable to what exists in the LA / OC mexaplexes, especially for salaried employees.

I am in the enterprise software / web apps space. The type of work I do is mostly for large corporations with lots of money. I am mostly talking about blue-chip employers like Yahoo MySpace, EA, Universal, major financial players, major software corps. few have any presence in San Diego so the opportunities simply do not exist here. San Diego you basically have Sony, Qualcomm, Websense, Life Tech (Invitrogen) and a few other large private or small public employers that everyone is playing musical chairs with. Many of our big names techs are in post-bankruptcy-land (Broadcomm/Nextwave, Leap/Cricket) and many of our biotechs are cash-poor and still have yet to become profitable. Few of these are more than micro-cap companies.

Sorrento Valley has a lot of Biotech, small manufacturing and a couple of corporate centers. However even on a geographic level the Irvine/Costa Mesa business complex is easily twice as large or more. And that one business center is just one of several in the region. There is a near-Sorrento Valley-sized business & industrial complex in nearly every major OC city. That scale means a job market with many thousands more jobs than San Diego will ever produce.

That is not even including Los Angeles which dwarfs OC. The scale of that region is not to be underestimated. Toyota in Torrance alone has a ten thousand acre campus.

OC is more expensive than SD but not that much more. If your goal is a career where you can make 125k+, OC is the better choice. That is not to say it is a nicer place to live.

[sdlife619]

OC definitely has much more offerings, and just the fact that your so close to LA, the opportunities are endless.

San Diego pales in comparison to OC's large corporation presence. Driving into Irvine makes you feel important.