Currently, all around the U.S., immensely popular companies like Google, Facebook and PayPal are hiring to catch up with the demand for their latest web creations.
These companies are building new campuses to specifically accommodate the growth they are planning in the next few years, with huge projections in the near future; typically within three to four years for each company.
It has been said that some 148,000 jobs in the tech field will open up by the end of 2011, replacing the almost 308,000 techie jobs lost during the economic downturn of the second quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2010.
Sophia Koropeckyj, an economist for Moody’s Analytics, determined these figures and said that in February there were about 6.1 million tech jobs in the United States, up 2.4 percent from last year, according to moodysanalytics.com.
With popular devices like the iPad and the HTC Thunderbolt, the industry continues to grow, and more and more people are getting their hands on the “smart device” of the future.
Especially in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, closest to the Silicon Valley, the growth of companies has exploded.
Google has made a public statement announcing that 2011 will be their largest hiring year ever. Back in 2007, Google had only employed 6,200 people and now, in 2011, they are currently signing 30,000 paychecks monthly.
Facebook is also growing by monumental numbers, almost 50 percent a year, and is moving to a new 57-acre site to house their growing company.
Twitter, the smallest of all the companies included in this research, currently has 400 employees, but a goal for almost 3,000 by July 2013.
The growth I’m most excited for is Skype, which is working to open its company publicly, and is housing a little over 900 workers, but looking to add 350 in the near future.
The time is right for college students to hop on the technological band wagon and secure a career with a company while it is still in its infant stages.
Seniors here at the UT have great chances of being able to secure jobs as these companies are looking to hire now and our seniors will be out on the job hunt here in the coming weeks.
An education major has hopeful thoughts toward the economy changing. Laurel McCann said, “The tech industry is great. As an educator, it could help by giving new and creative ways for students to learn in the classroom.”
Another student, John Blocker, an accounting major, said he is “looking forward to the possibilities of all these jobs …. Even if I’m not specifically a computer science major, I still enjoy technology, and if a job is available it’s not like I’m going to turn it down.”
So get out there, seniors, and get some jobs. The discounts will definitely be worth it.
Todd Sanborn can be reached at todd.sanborn@spartans.ut.edu.