by Doug Millison for SiliconValleyWatcher.com

Silicon Valley gets a thumbs up, thumbs down in a regional report that Gary Rivlin elevates to national attention in the New York Times.

Rivlin writes:

Venture capital is on the rise, and once again Silicon Valley is growing thick with startups. Research and development funding in the Valley has hit new highs and corporate profits at area firms are generally robust.

And yet, despite an environment in which entrepreneurship is strong and established firms are by and large healthy, the Silicon Valley job market remains stagnant. Household income in the area is down, and troubling disparities persist in the areas of health care, education and housing.

Those are among the findings of a report, "2005 Silicon Valley Index," released today by Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network, a nonprofit organization that assesses the region's economic health each year.

....The study found that the region lost an estimated 1.3 percent of its jobs between mid-2003 and mid-2004, and average pay fell by 1 percent. That drop came on the heels of the 200,000 jobs that were lost earlier in the decade - representing nearly 20 percent of the work force - when the San Jose metropolitan area, which includes much of Silicon Valley, suffered the worst collapse of any metropolitan area in the United States since the Great Depression, surpassing even Detroit in the early 1980's, which lost 13 percent of its jobs.

Links:

Mixed Report on Silicon Valley by Gary Rivlin, New York Times, 23 January 2004

Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network

What's the story? Doug Millison also edits OnlineJournalist.org, "on a need-to-know basis"