Wages across much of the Bay Area have rocketed far above the national average, a federal Bureau of Labor Statistics report reveals.
Santa Clara County’s wages are 59 percent above the national average, while the San Francisco-San Mateo metro area is 53 percent higher, and East Bay workers command wages that are 26 percent over the U.S. average, the report shows.
The wage gap compared with the country as a whole reflects the Bay Area’s concentration of so many highly skilled workers in one region.
“It’s a unique space that we live in, both in terms of demand and the sheer size and wealth of the tech industry,” said Ben Bajarin, a principal analyst with Campbell-based Creative Strategies, a market researcher that tracks the tech sector. “This is a dynamic that you will not see in any part of the country or anywhere else in the world.”
The average hourly wage is $37.98 in Santa Clara County, $36.61 in the San Francisco-San Mateo metro area and $30.17 in the East Bay.
The United States average hourly wage is $23.86, the government survey states. The figures for the annual survey were current as of May 2016, the most recent time period available.
“This is extraordinary how much higher the wages are in the Bay Area,” said Russell Hancock, president of Joint Venture Silicon Valley, a nonprofit group consisting of business, government, academic and labor leaders. “We have a higher cost of living here in the Bay Area, and employers have to pay more to hire and retain employees.”
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