Super hot high-tech employment breaks records

Joe Kraus, the co-founder of Excite@Home

From Correspondent Greg Lefevre

February 7, 2000
Web posted at: 2:33 a.m. EST (0733 GMT)

In this story: Boom has made region rich in jobs Internet has fueled economic growth Real estate competition heats up New companies move at 'Web speed' Continuing the gold rush RELATED STORIES, SITES

SAN FRANCISCO (CNN) -- At her usual Monday morning new employee orientation, Suzanne Quintenilla briefs newcomers to Excite@Home.

"We want to revolutionize the way people communicate."

She is talking to 20 new employees all of whom started in the last few days. She been doing a lot of this lately.

Meanwhile her industry is breaking economic records. The unemployment rate in her home county is an all time low: 1 1/2 percent.

"I think right now in the valley one of the toughest jobs is being a recruiter," Quintenilla said, "because there are more positions available than employees."

She briefs 15 to 30 new employees every week.

Workers are in Web design, engineering, software, sales, human resources, graphics, janitorial and maintenance.

And filling all those jobs is getting tough.

The high-tech boom has made San Mateo and Marin counties job-rich

The high-tech boom has made San Mateo and Marin counties job-rich. Example: A year ago Excite had 700 employees, It merged with @Home and grew to 2,500. It needs another 2,000 this year.

"I've never seen such a competitive market for talent as in the last 6 months to a year," said Company co-founder Joe Kraus said.

"And it's funny, you think it can never get any more competitive. And yet the next year it gets that much more competitive."

Kraus lures people to his company with employee perks that include massages, dry cleaning assistance, even a concierge to help employees with their personal tasks that most folks would do on their day off.

Kraus has very little time off. He's too busy building and growing a company.

"I'm tired but I'm having a great time. I think that's sort of the common answer that anybody in Silicon Valley has.

"I've never had more fun. I've never been more tired!"

The plunging unemployment rate in San Mateo County, where Excite@Home is based and in Marin County to the north is easily traced.

Says Kraus, "It's generally due to the Internet boom. It's due to both companies like Excite@Home who are further along in their life cycle as well as the second, third, fourth generation startup companies that surround Excite@Home."

Krause knows why Internet services, which by their nature can operate anywhere in the world, still cluster in Silicon Valley.

"It is ironic that the Internet is a global phenomenon yet if you're not in Silicon Valley, it's really hard to get a sense of the pace and the connections between those companies. So many of the ideas get transferred in hallway conversations, meetings over lunch and the casual interactions of the companies that are proximate."

There's a lot of idea sharing across the backyard fence and at other social gatherings in the Valley. The ambiance alone he says helps drive the industry.

"I think it's very difficult to be a successful Internet company that isn't based in Silicon Valley."

He is also recruiting for offices in other tech regions, notably Provo, Utah, Austin, Texas, and Seattle. (You've got to be in Seattle.)

In Marin County, vegetable retailer David Finlay has to stock his own shelves because he can't find enough staff willing to work retail.

Across his community the tech boom created a land rush for office space.

In suburban San Rafael office vacancy rates are down to 1 percent. Older buildings once considered unrentable are renovated ... and full.

"It's hotter than I've ever seen it," says Bill McCubbin, the CEO of Orion Partners, a real estate management firm.

He's also President of the Chamber of Commerce. And commerce is good.

"There is, for example, only about 160,000 feet of space available today for immediate occupancy in Marin. There are well over a million feet of users looking for space."

And he says when the dot com companies come looking for space they want it in a hurry. They move, he says, at "Web speed."

"They make it clear to us that they're not going to go through the conventional steps of going through lease review and so forth.

They find a location, they move quickly. They want us to move quickly."

McCubbin says a lease closing that normally would take 90 to 120 days is finished in a week -- if he can find the space.

McCubbin says that's turned developers into re-developers in the older sections of town. Like San Rafael, near the George Lucas motion picture empire.

"Downtown San Rafael is really a renaissance city today. You find major companies moving back to the city, and the city planning for housing in the downtown area. You're going to see much more infill than we've seen before."

New technology gets the attention but the economy here is remarkably broad.

San Francisco's tourism hit an all time high. Construction is up. San Francisco's airport will more than double its size this year.

But with success, comes the price: record high home costs for those who can choke down paying $400,000 for a two and a half bedroom home, or long commutes for those who can't.

Rich Gordon, San Mateo County Supervisor, "With this rapid rise in jobs and not enough housing, housing prices are skyrocketing, folks are commuting long distances to get to these jobs that are available here and so that those are the challenges that we face in the midst of this economy."

Gordon says the boom itself presents another challenge: "To figure out how to keep these companies strong -- how to work with them in a way that keeps them viable."

And, he says, to keep this gold rush going.

Down and out in Silicon Valley
September 3, 1999
Electioneering puts nation's prosperity in spotlight
November 13, 1999
Consumers increasingly happy on the Net
June 26, 1999

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