Silicon Valley Increasingly Is California’s Recovery

One of the main reasons people continue to flock to the Silicon Valley-Bay Area despite the high cost of living is that the region is the epicenter of the Golden State’s labor force recovery. For instance, if you were to remove the Silicon Valley-Bay Area region from the state, California’s overall employment growth rate between 2009 and 2014 would fall from 7.5% to just 5.7%.

But it isn’t just California’s labor force that the Silicon Valley-Bay Area is propping up. California’s entire economic recovery stems directly from the region. This is evident by exploring the Silicon Valley-Bay Area’s contribution to California’s gross domestic product (GDP) and personal income, of which both are good estimates of economic health – for comparison Greater Los Angeles is also examined.