Is it really Seismic shift in tech world?

These type of stories simply remind me of India's caste system and caste based politics. I don't know why media has to hype such irrelevant facts which are based purely on someone's origin or birth rather than how we perform in the real world.

To my best of the knowledge, in tech world or in any other business world, only one thing matters.. performance.. which is same as value for money.. It is ridiculous to say that one particular group of people are being kicked out the workforce.. how can that happen when the top of same tech world is still controlled by that same particular group?? It is pure business and in pure business, only one thing matters.. performance..

Instead of cribbing about such things, media should highlight stories which should generate interest in so called STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths) subjects during early age of child's development. The facts mentioned in the article themselves tell us where to invest if we want so called balance in tech world..

As far as hispanics and black are concerned.. what percentage of high school students actually finish these STEM subjects with flying grades. Now we can start saying that there is discrimination or drive to push out at high school level as well? Come on..

All these things should have been thought way back in 80s or 90s when we decided to off shore our so called menial or low paying jobs.. As a business strategy we decided to do high tech or high value added work in US.. Government totally encouraged off shoring of manufacturing and other low value services jobs.. However, we totally forgot about mentoring or preparing our students for these remaining high tech or high value jobs.. which needed much more intensive studies and focus on STEM subjects. So when these jobs were exponentially getting created there were hardly any engineers to fill in them.

Combined with H1b and internal US engineering focus, slowly, over a period of time, ratio of non-whites kept on decreasing.. but that doesn't mean that there is any kind of discrimination against anyone. I still see many non-asian top class engineers/developers.. It is all about interest or I should say generating kids interest into this beautiful area of high tech world.. there are lot of work going on in this area and slowly, sooner or later parents and kids will start focussing back on this area and should result in great talent seeping back into this high tech world..

There is no need to create or highlight these group based statistics.. instead of this, we need to work on root of this problem..

DOUBLE-DIGIT EMPLOYMENT GAINS

Seismic shift in tech world

Asians skilled in science andmath nowamajority in Bay Area’s workplaces

By Dan Nakaso

dnakaso@mercurynews.com 

Asian-Americans make up half of the Bay Area’s technology workforce, and their double-digit employment gains came from jobs lost among white tech workers, according to an analysis by this newspaper of Census Bureau data released Thursday.

The dramatic shift in the changing composition of the high-tech workforce represents a new generation of homegrown and imported workers drilled in science, technology, engineering and math studies. But the shift in workplace demographics — at least among tech companies — fails to reflect the gains of California’s Hispanic and Latino population, which lost ground in tech jobs along with African- Americans.

“It’s the new world — a world in which whites are not the majority,” said Jan English-Lueck, associate dean of the college Cultures Project. “Other people are being displaced.” 

The percentage of Asian tech workers grew from 39 percent in 2000 to just more than 50 percent in 2010 in Santa Clara, San Mateo, Alameda, Contra Costa and San Francisco counties combined, according to Census Bureau statistics. 

At the same time, white workers saw their more than 50 percent majority of tech jobs in 2000 fall to nearly 41 percent, according to the numbers released Thursday. 

African-American and Hispanic tech workers each saw slight decreases: Positions held by African-American tech workers fell from 2.8 percent to 2.3 percent; those held by Hispanic workers dropped from 4.6 percent to 4.2 percent. 

The Census Bureau changed the way it categorized some computer and related jobs in 2000, so the Mercury News analysis of the latest data was based on tracking the changes in categories that appeared both in 2000 and 2010. 

Yolanda Lewis, president and CEO of the Oakland- based Black Economic Council, sees trouble in the increased importation of Asian tech workers. 

Tech companies, Lewis said, “do not want to employ Americans. They import labor from overseas, pushing for H-1B visas. Check the job boards. They basically say, ‘H-1B Visa. Americans need not apply.’ For years, women, blacks and Latinos have been kept out of the tech job market. Now white men are being forced to train their replacements.” 

Lewis has organized protests against tech companies, demanding more transparency into their work forces because, she said, “You can be next in the unemployment line.” 

Several high-profile tech companies contacted by this newspaper did not respond to requests for comment. 

“Diversity actually increases the profitability of these companies,” Lewis said. “In California, the minority is now the majority. How do you market your products and services to people you don’t understand? How can your business survive? These companies still don’t get it.” 

The tech employment picture hardly represents the growing number of Hispanics and Latinos who make up 27 percent of Santa Clara County, English-Lueck said. 

But it does reflect the young and growing number of Asian-Americans “who were raised with a very strong STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) background” and are going into high tech. 

Asian-American software developers, in particular, saw huge gains all around the Bay Area: from nearly 45 percent of those workers in 2000 to more than 53 percent in Alameda County; and from nearly 50 percent to nearly 60 percent in both San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, the center of Silicon Valley. 

Ryan Shelby, a 28-yearold African-American doctoral candidate in mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley, said young African- American and Hispanic students are often raised in communities that don’t stress science and math curriculums that are likely to guide them into tech jobs. 

Shelby grew up on a farm in Letohatchee, Ala., where his love for engineering started by working on his father’s tractor. 

“I’ve been beating my head over this,” Shelby said. “There’s a lack of mentorship early on for a lot of these young students, who don’t have these facilities and teachers to expose them to math, science and technology early on.” 

So Shelby supports greater outreach to women and underrepresented minorities at UC Berkeley’s College of Engineering, which now has an associate dean of “Equity and Inclusion.” 

While 34 percent of African- American and Hispanic students start out in engineering across the country, only 13 percent leave with degrees, he said. 

Meredith Leu grew up studying STEM courses surrounded by other Asian-American students and graduated with honors from Mission San Jose High School in Fremont. 

Now, as a 19-year-old junior at SJSU studying computer science, Leu said many non-Asians don’t appreciate “the Asian culture, where there is a deep work ethic that America hasn’t really bought into yet.” 

“Do I worry about a backlash?” Leu asked in response to a question. “It’s not so much a backlash against Asians, but … there needs to be a balance. I’m just trying to find it.” Mercury News Library Director Leigh Poitinger contributed to this story. Contact Dan Nakaso at 408-271-3648. Follow him at Twitter.com/dannakaso. 




PATRICK TEHAN/STAFF 

Meredith Leu, who studied science and math at Mission San Jose High, works in the Computer Science Club in MacQuarrie Hall at San Jose State. 

Is Silicon Valley Housing is back to bubble or just booming?

Great news items on front page of our local news paper. Seems that housing boom is back and it is more or less fueled by dot.com type of boom of Facebook, Google and many more successful tech companies.

In part it is fueled by higher employment gains in technology area which is again attracting inflow of technology workers back in valley. Palo Alto especially is favorite of all is considered safe heaven as it has great schools, great neighborhood of rich and famous. Even in worst of times, I haven't heard Palo Alto real estate going down. At the most it stagnates... However, boom does percolate to rest of the region and spreads to entire valley.

It is quite contrary to rest of the US that real estate is going up in Valley. But I guess, it is all about supply and demand. Lot of investment is from China, Russia and rest of the world. Which is quite obvious as weather is perfect and on top of it, if you want to do anything in technology area, this is THE PLACE to be.

Silicon valley is best example of the fact that Cost of Doing Business doesn't matter as long as you can do business and make money out of it. Silicon Valley has one of the highest possible cost of business with highest property rates, highest Utility rates, highest cost of employees, highest rate of taxes and one of the highest gas prices (except Hawaii). Despite that people come here and start business. Why? One reason could be luck or chance that Chip/Software some how got bootstrapped here. Another more persistent one is consistent climate of technology with abundant best Universities and abundant Capital availability from bunker hill road. All that surpasses any deterrent in form of cost.

I hope this boom will continue and will be a reasonable boom rather than bubble type of like it was in 2005s. All friends and family members.. if you want to move in, this is right time. jump in!!!


http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_20235268/buyers-compete-short-supply-homes-bay-area

SHIFT IN BAY AREA HOUSING

BIDDINGWAR

IN SOUTH BAY, TECH WORKERS DRIVE UP MARKET; IN EAST BAY, PENT-UP DEMAND FUELS BUYING BOOM


By Pete Carey

pcarey@mercurynews.com 

Peter Giovannotto is smack in the middle of a major shift in the Bay Area housing market.

The Peninsula real estate agent recently had a modest Palo Alto ranch-style home draw 38 offers and sell in eight days for nearly a half-million dollars more than the asking price, all par for the course in Palo Alto’s overheated real estate market.

“We started at $1.2 million and ended up selling for $1.65 million,” he said.

A flock of eager buyers competing for fewer-thanusual homes for sale is sending prices soaring along the Peninsula, where Googlers and Facebook employees duke it out with foreign investors for a place to live.

In other parts of the Bay Area, pent-up demand has helped create a hot market for lower-cost homes, with buyers having to move fast to grab foreclosures and be prepared for stiff competition on other homes for sale. In Contra Costa County, pending sales of single-family homes are up about 62 percent from last year and inventory is down 32 percent — a seller’s market.

“We are getting lots of multiple offers on lowerend properties,” said Barbara Safran, president of the Contra Costa Association of Realtors. “One person told me they had 12 offers on a property in Concord.”

CHUCK TODD/BAY AREA NEWS GROUP 

The winning bidder on the Palo Alto home was a Google employee from China, highlighting two trends: the rise of the wealthy tech buyer and the buyer from Asia. “We’re seeing lot more buyers from that region,” Giovannotto said. “It’s difficult to buy property over there, and the power of their money is greater over here.” 

Another Palo Alto home drew 10 offers recently, selling for $325,000 over the asking price. 

In the East Bay, a relatively small supply of lowerpriced homes and an increase in demand has homebuyers jumping. 

Two couples working with Danville real estate agent Kevin Kieffer of Keller Williams used the “strike first” method Kieffer advocates to grab their homes this month. He tells clients that in this market, they have to make a bid almost immediately, not wait until the weekend when the bulk of buyers are looking. If it’s a foreclosure, the bank is likely to welcome a decent offer, he said. 

Cameron and Rissa Kossen bought a bank-owned Martinez house that’s near Pleasant Hill schools for $313,000 by making an offer quickly. Had he waited until the weekend, Cameron Kossen said, other buyers would have made offers and “it would have gone up to $330,000 or $340,000.” 

Another East Bay couple, Ken and Ashley Wilson, were outbid on three homes before landing the fourth, a threebedroom, two-bath house in Pleasant Hill. 

“The housing market is moving so quick that houses would come on the market and my wife and I were having to make decisions almost at that minute, because there were others willing to purchase the home right then,” said Ken Wilson, who works at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. 

On both sides of San Francisco Bay, real estate agents say fewer homes than usual are for sale. 

“Menlo Park and Palo Alto are both desperate for inventory,” said Wendy McPherson of Coldwell Banker in Menlo Park. She said that Palo Alto recently had only about 30 homes for sale. 

Ray Chavez of Alain Pinel in Los Gatos sold a home in Santa Clara that received five offers in six days and sold for $17,000 over the asking price of $609,000, a big bump in that market for a small home. 

“It’s amazing what’s not out there right now,” he said. “There are only 32 homes in the whole city of Santa Clara. We’re down 74 percent from February 2011.” 

The threat of historically low interest rates rising further — the rates rose above 4 percent this week — combined with increased confidence in the economy is bringing out buyers who have been holding back. 

“I think it’s a little bit like Christmas,” said Safran of the Contra Costa Association of Realtors. “People finally started buying again this Christmas when they hadn’t bought for three years. I think they’re just ready. It’s time.” 

Sales were up across the Bay Area in February, the strongest showing for that month in five years, according to DataQuick, a real estate information service. 

Silicon Valley is having its fourth-highest year in sales since 2000, said Richard Calhoun of Creekside Realty in San Jose. Calhoun, who has tracked the inventory of homes for sale in Santa Clara County for more than a decade, said that in some parts of Silicon Valley, including the Palo Alto area, the entire stock of homes for sale would be exhausted in less than a month. 

“The housing market has definitely bottomed and is on a recovery path,” said Ken Rosen, chairman at the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics at UC Berkeley. “I think it is a real recovery happening, around the whole country.” 

Contra Costa County, saturated with foreclosures, is still 18 months away from a full recovery and a normal housing market, Rosen said. “There’s going to be a spillover from San Francisco and the Bay Area, but it hasn’t happened yet.” 

Some would-be sellers on the Peninsula seem to be holding out until next year, when Facebook’s newly minted millionaires will begin spending their money, potentially driving up prices even more. 

Sellers are “getting greedy” and pulling homes off the market, said Alex H. Wang of Rainmaker Properties in Los Altos. “They get multiple offers on their house and say, ‘I don’t want to sell anymore. I’ll wait until next year.’ That upsets everybody.” 

Contact Pete Carey at 408-920-5419. 




LIPO CHING/STAFF PHOTOS 

Real estate agents Peter Giovannotto, left, and Chris Iverson stand in front of a Palo Alto ranch-style house that received 38 offers and sold in eight days for $1.65 million, $450,000 more than the asking price. The agents used the lights as part of a renovation theme during the selling period. 







The three-bedroom, two-bathroom Palo Alto house features a modest living room and a double oven, but the top oven didn’t work at the time of the $1.65 million sale. 

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http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_20242869/bay-area-adds-more-than-15-000-jobs

LEADS STATE IN JOB GROWTH

Bay Area notches three-year high in employment

By George Avalos

gavalos@bayareanewsgroup.com 

The Bay Area economy created 15,400 jobs in February, raising total employment in the region to the highest level in three years, the state’s Employment Development Department reported Friday.

But despite positive job growth in the Bay Area, the net gain statewide was a mere 4,000 jobs.

“California’s economy is being led by the Bay Area,” said Scott Anderson, senior economist with Wells Fargo Securities. “The Bay Area is certainly the bright spot in the state.”

The Bay Area has added jobs for seven consecutive months, and all three major urban centers in the nine-county region are now making significant employment gains. The South Bay added 4,100 jobs last month, while the East Bay gained 3,200 and the San Francisco-San Mateo-Marin region added 7,100, seasonally adjusted figures showed. 

“The Bay Area is producing what the world wants,” said Jon Haveman, chief economist with the Bay Area Council’s Economic Institute. “High-end computer manufacturing, information services, professional and business services are all doing well and creating jobs.” 

To be sure, the Bay Area has a long way to go to recapture the jobs lost during the recession. Still, the current job trends show the region also has come a long way since the depths of the downturn. 

Employment totals in the Bay Area are now at their highest levels since February 2009. The East Bay and South Bay are at similar multiyear highs. 

The statewide jobless rate was 10.9 percent last month, unchanged from January. The United States had an unemployment rate of 8.3 percent in February, which also was the same as in January. 

In February, the South Bay posted a jobless rate of 8.7 percent, down from 8.9percent the previous month; the East Bay’s was unchanged at 9.3 percent, while the San Francisco area’s was at 7.4 percent, worse than the previous month’s 7.3 percent rate, a Beacon Economics estimate culled from the EDD figures shows. 

The overall Bay Area jobless rate was 8.6 percent in February, an improvement from the 8.7 percent rate in January, according to this newspaper’s analysis of the Beacon figures. 

Through much of the recovery from the recession, the South Bay and San Francisco regions led in job growth, bolstered by the fastexpanding tech sector. The East Bay, ground zero for the meltdown of the housing market, has lagged. 

Now, however, the East Bay has joined the upswing, which bodes well for overall economic prospects in the Bay Area. The 3,200 jobs East Bay employers added in February follow a gain of 9,400 jobs in January. 

Despite the improvements, the hunt for employment remains a struggle for some job seekers. 

Even the information technology sector isn’t uniformly hot for job seekers. Gabriel Garcia, a San Jose resident, is finding that IT employers prefer to hire people for temporary contract jobs rather than full-time positions. 

“It seems that things are picking up,” Garcia said. “But it’s been harder than I expected.” 

Despite the tough times, Newark resident Sarah Babbitt, a mother of two, is not discouraged as she seeks a job in retail or restaurant management. 

“I’ve been looking for work for about two months,” Babbitt said. “But I’m confident in my skills. I’ll be able to find something.” 

The region is poised to produce more employment opportunities for job seekers, analysts predicted. 

“The Bay Area has longterm fundamentals that are better than pretty much anywhere else in the world,” Haveman said. “That is the result of the frontier economy that we have in this region.” 

Contact George Avalos at 925-977-8477. Follow him at Twitter.com/george_avalos. 

West on the way to Japan - Part Two

In first or original article about this, I focussed on Japan itself.. Why Japan is or was reference point for sagging economy.. What are the japan's issues and what could be some creative solutions from my side to solve this problem.

In this one I will try to jott down my views about one part of the west which is also called Europe.. or some times we call it PIGS with love. and then there is rest of the Europe excluding PIGS.. Primarily composed of countries like Germany, France, UK etc..

So, what was the driver for growth for Europe in past and present (if any..). I think in past, key to Europe's success was Industrial revolution supported by Colonial era from of 18th and 19th Century.. Then came devastation of World Wars in early part of 20th Century.. Which essentially devastated most of the Europe and especially Colonial Super powers.. It literally shifted wealth from Europe to North America. Once World Wars were over, some of the countries really worked hard and really leveraged their core expertise and knowledge.. Germany is one such example.. it was left in rubbles after world war II. Still it prospered as it has to prove back their dominance in any field other than military. But mostly rest of the Europe lagged and continued to bleed..

Some great countries like Britain and France, took mostly services route and lagged in industrial leadership other than few niche areas. Many other countries like Italy, Portugal, Spain etc.. didn't find any key area to prosper.. also.. most of these countries were small in sizes and they literally stuck to their culture and language to such a extent that it was difficult to do any significant trade with them..  Many of these countries relied primarily on Tourism and services for their livelihood.. With no real manufacturing growth it was dependent on rest of the world's growth and success.. If rest of the Europe or World grew exponentially they grew to certain extent.. if Rest of the Europe or World hit recession, these countries hit major recession.. Resulting in slow but definitive demise in their real national power and growth engine..

Then came final nail in the coffin in form of CDO by great minds of New York/Jersey.. After 9/11, our great leaders like Bush/Cheeney and Mr. Greenspan tried to grow US by going to war both in Middle east and in economic front.. This led to world's biggest property bubble which took many of these empty economies of Europe initially up and then down when it bursted.. In Europe, Germany literally took US role of lending and fueling this bubble and then forcing these countries to accept IMF conditions to pay itself back..

Okay.. If you have read my previous article about Japan.. I feel that conditions are literally opposite here in Europe. As European's are addicted to more vacations and less work.. They thought they will be rich forever whether they work or not.. Irrespective of how much loan they take to feed themselves.. there will always be some one to rescue them or most likely they won't even reach to this bad condition.. Now, Euro made matter even worse.. It tied individual countries to rest of the Europe that it literally made it impossible for them to fail ALONE...

So what are the solution to this mess in Europe.. is there any???  Let us take a shot at them.. First of all, let us divide Euro.. and make Something like Peuro (PIGS Euro) for the countries who don't take care of their Pig--gy bank accounts.. Kick these Pigs out of Euro.. There will be some blood or may be lot of blood every where in Europe but it will be just one time instead of current slow death by slow bleeding mode..  Then, ask these countries to do what they can do best.. I can't think of anything else other than tourism.. These PIGS should really work hard on educating their population in different languages like English (or may be not), Chinese, Hindi/Telgu/Tamil etc. Also, instill some more hospitality culture in population and over emphasizing on how important these guests are to their nation..

Lastly, they should fix their labor problems.. Employees are paid to work.. not to take vacation.. Easily cut all the benefits and vacations and holidays to Half of what it is right now.. Let them work hard.. one are the days of free lunches.. hey.. may be start some exchange program with Japan so both the sides can benefit from each other's strengths and Weakness..