The BLS has issued new report on Silicon valley employment. Bear in mind this report is before this recession.

In 2000 silicon valley had 544,387 techie jobs. By 2004, the California region tech hub had an official drop of 26% to 403,994 high technology jobs.

Now check out the pathetic growth after that. By 2008 the California Bay area had 435,958 technology jobs. That is 20% below the 2000 employment levels.

2002, the year of offshore outsourcing, the area lost 60% of the jobs.

Even worse, in 2003 the top 150 high tech. companies had a 170% profit increase. So, they created profits by pure labor arbitrage.

Wages? They too have dropped 16% since 2000. Remember the cost of living in Silicon valley increased during those 8 years, more than the national average.

Offshore outsourcing good for America? I don't think so. Past estimates showed over 50% of the area's techies were forced out permanently of their careers from the dot con boom. This number isn't the same as permanent job losses and job creation. While shockingly high, it can be attributed in a large part to the dot con bust.

Now the overall area's use of H-1B, L-1 and offshore outsourcing? The dot con bust was just an excuse. Global labor arbitrage was assuredly enabled by the high bandwidth Internet and the cliff drop in telecommunication costs and a massive increase in guest worker Visas by our lovely Congress. (...and Benedict Arnold corporations, tax incentives to offshore outsource your job, NASSCOM, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and every other idiot who promoted this idea...now coming home to roost in our current economy).

It's unclear how many foreign guest workers are being counted in this report.

The actual paper is attached to this post.