Los Angeles Salaries vs San Diego Salaries? (Orange, London: job market, community college)

[RockhetHD]

Are San Diego salaries about on par with LA salaries or does LA seem to pay more for the same job in san diego?

[cruitr]

LA pays better. Better career advancement in LA too.

[NYSD1995]

LA will pay 30%+ or more for the same job (talking white collar here). From a career advancement perspective, LA offers vastly more opportunity. For non-degreed / labor, it's probably the same.

[Encinitan]

The short answer is, it depends on the job, depends on the career, depends on the employer, depends on too many factors to list here. It's far too individualized of an analysis to say that you will earn more in LA (or anywhere else) than you will in SD. A lot of people knock SD for the "sunshine tax" and for non-competitive salaries, but the truth is, it's not a black and white rule.

[NYSD1995]

Unless you are in bioscience / bio-med or wireless engineering, it is almost a certainty you will be paid less.

[shmoov_groovzsd]

Originally Posted by Sassberto

Unless you are in bioscience / bio-med or wireless engineering, it is almost a certainty you will be paid less.

Exactly. I work in wireless and its totally specialized due to the military and Qualcomm's HQ being here. The only other cities I think that might compare in my industry is Atlanta and maybe Dallas. Dallas has more R&D on the tower side and Research Park, NC is vacant as most of those companies have moved to Hotlanta.

As Sass said, besides wireless and biotech, I see no other white collar career specialization between here and LA, let alone other major cities for that matter.

[Just1Lion]

definitely depends on the job. you can't say that LA will pay 30% more than SD without a serious disclaimer. i was applying to jobs w/ the us govt and the SD office actually started off 10K more than the the same job in the LA office. just an example.

[NYSD1995]

Originally Posted by Just1Lion

definitely depends on the job. you can't say that LA will pay 30% more than SD without a serious disclaimer. i was applying to jobs w/ the us govt and the SD office actually started off 10K more than the the same job in the LA office. just an example.

Ok here's the disclaimer: private sector, white-collar W-2 employees in a well-defined national industry - not government, not small businesses, not niche / cottage industries - in the majority of cases, will pay significantly (~30%+) less in San Diego than they do in Los Angeles, and will have significantly less career opportunity.

It's so longstanding that it's a regional stereotype - there's a reason for that! San Diego is a city where people think 80k/yr is big money.

[dougstech]

Originally Posted by Sassberto

Ok here's the disclaimer: private sector, white-collar W-2 employees in a well-defined national industry - not government, not small businesses, not niche / cottage industries - in the majority of cases, will pay significantly (~30%+) less in San Diego than they do in Los Angeles, and will have significantly less career opportunity.

It's so longstanding that it's a regional stereotype - there's a reason for that! San Diego is a city where people think 80k/yr is big money.

I dont understand this. LA has a much larger population, which would mean more job competition. Seems like salaries would be less.

[NYSD1995]

Originally Posted by dougstech

I dont understand this. LA has a much larger population, which would mean more job competition. Seems like salaries would be less.

It's hard to explain without a discourse on urban economies and service sector job market. An Econ class at a community college might help you to understand.... but here goes:

The largest cities have wide, deep and diverse job markets, including global corporate headquarters and international business centers. This spawns a rich, deep service sector that cannot exist elsewhere, often closely tied to a specific industry. This service sector then creates high-paying, world-class jobs which attract the best and brightest. The competition for a relatively small group of qualified candidates in any one industry in any one location then drives salaries up as supply is constrained and demand is high. See NYC (finance), London (finance), SF Bay Area (tech), Houston (energy), as other examples.

In addition, these core industries support a strong professional services sector (law, accounting, IT, etc) which again sees greater depth and diversity and job competition and hence has higher salaries. The scale of the core industry, and it's combined service sector create a large and usually unmet demand for high-skilled labor that creates high-paying jobs across most finance, engineering, medical, and business professions.

Knowing that the majority of the population of any large city mostly consists of working class and the poor, the size of a city population is an not a particular relevant measure in it's ability to drive high paying jobs. However since people tend to flock to places where there are jobs, there is a cause-an-effect cycle at play, where high levels of economic activity drive population growth at all levels, even people who move for low-paying jobs.

San Diego is geographically too far from LA to participate in it's economy (unlike Orange County) but too small to be considered a major market in it's own right. As a result, many companies will bypass investment into San Diego in favor or LA or SF Bay's larger, more world-class markets.