San Diego among cities with fewer jobs today than 10 years ago (employment, live)

[NYSD1995]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...?sref=LH2JDHdD

"Among the 51 metropolitan areas with a 2010 Census population of 1 million or more, about 40% have seen a decline in employment levels compared with five years ago, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics."

If you have lived here for long enough, you've seen this. 10+ years ago there were a bunch of mid-level corporations with 100-300 employees, today all of those companies are gone, replaced with startups that employ far fewer people.

Does anyone remember:
- Active Network (moved to TX)
- Websense (moved to TX)
- WebSideStory
- Miva
- MP3.com

[stablegenius]

It's sad, but it is probably also what keeps our population somewhat in check.

[Frac]

Any data on biotech employers? I know the tech scene here is relatively weak, but with remote work now it doesn't seem to be as much of an issue. I have 2 friends that live here who both work remotely in a software engineering capacity.

[Axxlrod]

Originally Posted by NYSD1995

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...?sref=LH2JDHdD

"Among the 51 metropolitan areas with a 2010 Census population of 1 million or more, about 40% have seen a decline in employment levels compared with five years ago, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics."

If you have lived here for long enough, you've seen this. 10+ years ago there were a bunch of mid-level corporations with 100-300 employees, today all of those companies are gone, replaced with startups that employ far fewer people.

Does anyone remember:
- Active Network (moved to TX)
- Websense (moved to TX)
- WebSideStory
- Miva
- MP3.com

Well, doesn't seem very fair to hold it against SD that several companies escaped to TX due primarily to policies forced on the entire state by Gavin.

[JohnAlt]

Originally Posted by Axxlrod

Well, doesn't seem very fair to hold it against SD that several companies escaped to TX due primarily to policies forced on the entire state by Gavin.

Websense moved or at least was preparing to move way before Newsome.

[sfosyd]

I don't think this is much of a reflection on San Diego and was influenced by the pandemic. San Diego has always had lots of tourist jobs....

It would take a lot of those 100-300 person companies to equal the presence Apple and Amazon have invested in SD...and those are good jobs with stock grants etc. At least some of these were just normal acquisitions, wasn't WebSideStory acquired by Adobe and integrated into their Analytics platform?

Also, no joke, the city of Austin is more expensive than the city of San Diego now.

[NYSD1995]

Originally Posted by sfosyd

I don't think this is much of a reflection on San Diego and was influenced by the pandemic. San Diego has always had lots of tourist jobs....

It would take a lot of those 100-300 person companies to equal the presence Apple and Amazon have invested in SD...and those are good jobs with stock grants etc. At least some of these were just normal acquisitions, wasn't WebSideStory acquired by Adobe and integrated into their Analytics platform?

Also, no joke, the city of Austin is more expensive than the city of San Diego now.

There used to be a lot of those 100-300 person companies though. I remember I worked for one. I actually got out of tech here because the local companies are so bad. I have been doing the same stuff for healthcare / biotech adjacent since the mid 2000's

Most of them were private equity takeovers of failing small caps.

I work in biotech, so many of these companies are really small. It's good if you are a scientist, but not a ton of opportunity. Also it's weird, but scientists are really underpaid and overworked.

Austin & Seattle have just had way more economic growth over the past 10 years when compared to SD. A lot of job growth we could have attracted went to OC / LA, which is really saying something.

Remote work is a godsend but I don't see it helping making employers here anymore competitive with the broader market.

[T. Damon]

Even defense support companies haven't been spared from the paring down of jobs. Once San Diego-based SAIC was a huge company with over 35k global employees before it split into two companies and moved its headquarters to Virginia. It’s still a large company but 1000s of SD-based jobs are now gone.

My SO has work for them for over 35 years, once writing speeches for the founder and chairman Bob Beyster before becoming a project manager with a TS/SCI clearance. His career with them is winding down but it was once where BA majors like his (journalism) from SDSU could find great jobs with a local-based company. Those opportunities have become far fewer and are typically with now much greater required qualifications.

[Axxlrod]

Originally Posted by JohnAlt

Websense moved or at least was preparing to move way before Newsome.

You're correct. CA has been chasing away companies before Gavin. It's the entire governing body's attitude toward businesses.

[NYSD1995]

Originally Posted by Axxlrod

You're correct. CA has been chasing away companies before Gavin. It's the entire governing body's attitude toward businesses.

Most of these companies were gone by 2008. At the time San Diego was seen as a weak talent market more so than some political BS