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高技术人才在硅谷炙手可热

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Market Is Hot For High-Skilled In Silicon Valley

Five years after the dot-com bubble burst, job growth has returned to Silicon Valley. But it's a different kind of growth than in past recoveries, favoring higher-skilled workers.

Netflix Inc.'s hiring shifts are typical. During the tech boom, the online movie-rental service created 100 customer-service jobs near its Los Gatos, Calif., headquarters in the heart of Silicon Valley. After the tech bust in 2000, Netflix eliminated half of those positions. But the total headcount at Netflix's Silicon Valley offices has grown 20%, to nearly 200 staffers in the last few years.

That's because Netflix, while shedding some lower-end jobs, has aggressively created new, higher-level jobs. It's adding jobs in departments such as Web engineering and product development: That groups' hiring of engineers jumped 20% to more than 50 people in 2005 alone. "Our new engineers have an average of seven to 15 years experience," says Patty McCord, Netflix's chief talent officer. "Five years ago, we hired people with three to five years of experience."


Past tech recoveries tended to bring new lower-skilled jobs as well as high-skill jobs. This time, tech firms -- from big companies like Hewlett-Packard Co. to mid- and small-size firms such as Netflix, Adobe Systems Inc., and SanDisk Corp. -- have moved lower-skill jobs out of the Silicon Valley area to cheaper locations, or outsourced them to foreign countries. The new jobs they are creating locally often require specialized skills in engineering and design. Young companies like Google Inc. are simply starting out hiring at the high end, further shifting the overall balance.

A study last month by Joint Venture Silicon Valley, a nonprofit group representing businesses and government agencies in the area, found the nation's tech capital had a net increase in jobs in 2005 for the first time in four years. Most of the growth came in the category of creative and innovation services, including firms in research and development, scientific and technical consulting and industrial design. In total, the number of Silicon Valley jobs in these areas grew 4% from 2002 to 2005, reaching 72,734. At the same time, the number of jobs in electronic-component manufacturing -- which tend to involve assembly and other repetitive tasks -- dropped 28% to 23,772, while jobs in semiconductor-equipment manufacturing fell 23% to 58,133.

Overall, 14% of all the jobs in Silicon Valley today belong to a sector called core design, engineering and science. That exceeds the comparable 9.3% slice of the work force in Austin, Texas; 8.7% in Seattle; and 8.3% in San Diego, according to the study.

Doug Henton, an economist and co-author of the report, says with the growth in these creative engineering jobs, a new face of Silicon Valley is emerging. "Ten years ago, this was an engineering Valley that pumped out chips and computers," he says. "Now it's all about creative tech and staying on the cutting edge."

The shift highlights how Silicon Valley is working to establish a competitive advantage, as lower-cost geographic rivals chip away at its strongholds. The Silicon Valley region has taken the tack of moving up the skills curve before: As competition in chip making became more heated in the 1970s, Silicon Valley chip makers relocated their assembly and manufacturing overseas but retained their core design facilities in the region. Today these chip makers, such as Intel Corp., remain dominant.


Silicon Valley's changing employment makeup does have its downside. Wages are once again creeping up, making it more expensive to do business in the already pricey area. Average annual pay in Silicon Valley hit $69,455 in 2005, up 2.7% from 2004, though it remains below the heights of the average $80,000-plus that the region's workers earned in 2000, according to Joint Venture Silicon Valley.

What's more, as operations and lower-skill tech jobs leave the region, Silicon Valley has a narrower base of industries. That makes the area more vulnerable should another downturn occur, says Steve Levy, an economist at the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto, Calif. "Los Angeles has a far more diverse economic base, with Hollywood, biotechnology, plastics and toys," says Mr. Levy. "But high-skill tech is all we're left with."

Tech companies say the shift toward the top end of the skills spectrum has largely been positive for them -- particularly in productivity. Consider SanDisk, a Sunnyvale, Calif., supplier of flash memory products. SanDisk had 300 operations and manufacturing jobs in Silicon Valley in 2000. The company moved about half of those jobs to Asia over the past few years, but the headcount at its headquarters jumped to 747 people by the end of 2005.

SanDisk's fastest-growing job category has been product development and research, where the company is now hiring "at the master's level and Ph.D. level," says Judy Bruner, SanDisk's chief financial officer. "We can't take just a general engineer."

While Ms. Bruner acknowledges average compensation at SanDisk is rising, she says higher-skill workers have helped the firm get more done. Last year, each SanDisk employee generated an average $2.4 million in revenue, up from around $1.5 million per employee in 2002.

Palm Inc., which makes hand-held computers and cellphones, has seen a similar productivity boost. Teresa Toller, the Sunnyvale, Calif., company's director of staffing, says Palm beefed up its engineering teams by 70% to more than 400 people in all over the past two years. The company has sought engineers specializing in wireless technologies, such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Palm's average revenue per employee was $1.61 million for its fiscal year ended June 3, 2005, almost double the fiscal 2002 level or $788,000 per employee.

Google is doing more specialized hiring in areas such as mechanical and electrical engineering, says Alan Eustace, senior vice president of engineering at the Mountain View, Calif., search company. Last year, Google brought 2,659 new employees on board, pushing its total work force to 5,680. "We definitely hire for creativity, since creative people look at problems a different way and come up with the most interesting solutions," Mr. Eustace says.

The type of Silicon Valley employee now in demand looks something like Simon Smith. The 36-year-old Mr. Smith, who works at software maker Adobe, doesn't have a typical engineering background: He has degrees in architecture and ran a Web development company before becoming creative director of software firm Macromedia Inc. in 2002. Adobe, which makes software programs such as Photoshop and Illustrator, bought Macromedia for $3.4 billion last year.

At Adobe, Mr. Smith heads the world-wide user experience practice, a 12-person consulting team that works with outside clients to design mobile and Internet applications using Adobe technology. "We want to usher in a whole new era of design for our clients by leveraging Adobe technology," says Mr. Smith. He says he plans to expand his team over the next 12 months, with job candidates ideally coming from design firms such as Frog Design Inc., a Palo Alto, Calif.,-based company that helps design products such as Micron's PCs, Dell.com's Web site and Symantec's software packaging. A Frog Design spokesman says the company takes it as a compliment that tech firms are trying to recruit from it, but says its work force remains stable and has grown to 275 employees at the end of last year from 200 in mid-2005.
高技术人才在硅谷炙手可热

互联网泡沫破灭五年之后,硅谷重新出现了就业增长。不过,和过去不同的是,这次硅谷更青睐高技术人才。

Netflix Inc.的用人变化就颇具代表性。在科技繁荣时期,这家网上电影租赁公司在其总部所在地硅谷中心附近创造了100个客户服务职位。2000年科技股暴跌后,这些职位被裁掉了一半。不过,Netflix Inc.硅谷办公室的总人数在过去几年里却增加了20%,达到近200人。

这是因为Netflix在减少低级工作岗位的同时,创造了许多高级别的新职位。公司增加了诸如网络工程、产品研发等部门的职位:仅2005年一年,这些部门招收的工程师就增加了20%,达到了50多人。Netflix首席人力资源长Patty McCord说,“新工程师平均有7至15年的工作经验,而5年前,我们的工程师只有3至5年的工作经验。”

从前,科技产业振兴通常在创造低层岗位的同时也带来了高端岗位。这一次,科技公司──从惠普公司(Hewlett-Packard Co.)等大公司到Netflix、奥多比系统公司(Adobe Systems Inc.)和晟碟(Sandisk Corp.)等中小公司──纷纷将低技术岗位从硅谷迁至劳动力价格更为廉价的地区或者向国外外包。硅谷本地的新职位通常要求工程、设计等专业技能。像Google Inc.这样的新兴公司在创立之初就直接聘用高端人才,这进一步打破了整体平衡。

上个月,代表硅谷企业和政府机构的非赢利性组织Joint Venture Silicon Valley的一份研究显示,2005年硅谷的就业4年来首次出现净增长。大多数增长均来自于创意和创新服务行业,包括研发、科学和技术咨询以及工业设计领域的公司。总体上,硅谷在这些领域的岗位从2002年到2005年期间增长了4%,达到72,734个。与此同时,电子元件制造--通常涉及组装和其他重复性工作--岗位下降了28%至23,772个;而半导体设备制造岗位减少了23%至58,133个。

总体来看,硅谷今天14%的就业岗位都属于一个被称为核心设计、工程和科学的领域。研究显示,这超过了得克萨斯州奥斯汀同等工作岗位所占的比例9.3%;也超过了圣地牙哥的8.3%。

报告的作者之一、经济学家亨顿(Doug Henton)说,随著这些创意工程岗位的增加,硅谷正在展现出“新的一面”。“十年前,这里是一个生产芯片和电脑的工程谷,”他称。“如今这里是创意和尖端科技的天下。”

这种转变凸现出硅谷在低成本地域竞争对手不断蚕食其生存空间的情况下是如何努力确立自己的竞争优势的。硅谷就业岗位的重心此前就已出现过向高端岗位转移的情形: 随著芯片制造业的竞争在70年代开始日趋激烈,硅谷的芯片制造商将组装和制造业务迁往国外,但保留了他们的核心设计设施。今天,包括英特尔(Intel Corp.)在内的这些芯片制造商仍占据著主导地位。

硅谷不断变化的就业格局也有不利的一面。工资再度爬升,使得在这个本已十分昂贵的地区开展业务的成本更加高涨。根据Joint Venture Silicon Valley的资料,2005年硅谷的平均年薪达到了69,455美元,较2004年增长了2.7%,但仍低于该地区2000年的高点8万多美元。

此外,随著业务和低技术岗位的流失,硅谷的工业基础更加狭窄。一旦再次出现商业滑坡,硅谷就更容易受到冲击,加州经济持续研究中心(the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy)的经济学家莱维(Steve Levy)说。“洛杉矶的经济基础远比我们多元化,那里有好莱坞、生物科技、塑料和玩具产业,”莱维说。“但高科技是我们仅有的产业。”

科技企业称,高端岗位的增加基本上对他们是有利的-尤其是在生产率方面。看看闪存产品供应商晟碟的情况就可略见一斑。2000年,总部设在加州森尼韦尔的晟碟在硅谷拥有300个操作和制造岗位。过去几年来,该公司将其中约半数岗位转移到了亚洲,但到2005年年底,其总部的雇员人数却跃升到了747人。

晟碟增加最快的就业岗位一直在产品开发和研究领域,该公司现在聘用的人员都要具备硕士和博士学历,晟碟的首席财务长布鲁诺(Judy Bruner)说。“我们不会接受一个普通的工程师。”

虽然布鲁诺承认晟碟的平均薪酬一直在攀升,但她表示高技术人员对公司的贡献更大。去年,晟碟的人均创收240万美元,高于2002年的150万美元左右。

同样,手持电脑和手机制造商Palm Inc.也看到生产率出现了大幅提高。公司人力资源主管托勒尔(Teresa Toller)称,过去两年来,Palm工程队伍的人员配备增加了70%,达到了400余人。该公司一直在招募专攻蓝牙(Bluetooth)和Wi-Fi等无线技术的工程师。截至2005年6月3日的财政年度,Palm的人均创收为161万美元,较2002财政年度的人均创收78.8万美元增长了一倍多。

Google招聘的专业化人才更多地集中在机械和电子工程领域,公司工程部高级副总裁尤斯塔斯(Alan Eustace)说。去年,Google新聘员工2,659人,使员工总数达到5,680人。“我们一定要根据创造力进行招聘,因为富有创意的人看问题的角度不同,能拿出最有趣的解决方案,”尤斯塔斯说。

史密斯(Simon Smith)是硅谷现在需要的典型人才。现年36岁的史密斯为软件制造商奥多比工作,他并不具备典型的工程背景:他拥有建筑设计方面的学位,曾经运营过一个网络开发公司,后于2002年加盟软件公司Macromedia Inc.担任创意总监。奥多比去年斥资34亿美元收购了Macromedia。

在奥多比,史密斯负责全球用户体验实践工作,这是一个由12人组成的顾问团队,他们与外部客户合作,利用奥多比的技术设计移动和互联网应用程序。“我们希望通过利用奥多比的技术带领客户进入一个全新的设计时代,”史密斯说。他说,他打算在未来12个月扩大自己的团队,理想的申请人应当来自于诸如Frog Design Inc.等设计公司。Frog Design Inc.位于加州帕洛阿尔托,协助设计诸如美光科技(Micron)的个人电脑、戴尔公司(Dell)的网站和赛门铁克(Symantec)的软件封装等产品。Frog Design的一位发言人称,公司把其他科技企业试图挖脚的行为当作是一种恭维, 但表示其员工队伍保持稳定,去年年底时已经由年中的200人增至275人。
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