While tech workers reap high salaries and lavish benefits, the people who cook and serve their food, maintain their offices and provide workplace security often live in poverty – and for every tech job created, four service workers are needed to support it, creating a large and growing underclass of “invisible workers” in Silicon Valley. The issue — and startling statistics on the racial and ethnic segregation of Silicon valley — was laid out in an analysis of the Valley workforce by Working Partnerships USA, a public policy and research institute based in San Jose. Workers who share a campus with the tech elite, are forced to live in poverty by the high cost of living in the region. Community leaders are alarmed by the disappearance of jobs that pay a living wage, and experts in the field of social science and workforce economics, speak to the startling evidence of Silicon Valley’s economic and occupational segregation.
- In Silicon Valley, more than half of new jobs through 2018 will pay $50,000 or less, according to state employment projections.
- The Bay Area Council estimates that every high tech job added to the local economy creates four jobs in support services fields.
- The two largest tech occupations in Santa Clara County – systems software developers and applications software developers – earn median hourly wages of $63.62 and $61.87. The median hourly wages for the three largest categories of contracted workers – landscaping workers, janitors, and security guards – are $13.82, $11.39, and $14.17.
- 88% of computer and mathematical jobs in Santa Clara County offer earned sick days; 85%, of engineering and architecture jobs offer earned sick days. But only 41% of building & ground cleaning jobs allow employees to take event a single paid sick day; private protective service jobs (which include security jobs) are nearly as bad, with only 45% providing any earned sick days. Nearly 80% of food service workers here lack paid sick leave.
The solutions don’t lie in increased STEM education and gender-based outreach for tech workers. The people who protect and serve Silicon Valley’s new elite need and deserve dignity in their own occupations. Tech companies negotiate, set prices for and sign every contract with the middleman companies. With a stroke of a pen – or a single keystroke – tech companies could improve economic opportunities for thousands of low-wage workers and their families by requiring that their contractors – their grounds maintenance companies, their food service providers, their private security firms – provide their workers with a living wage and fair benefits.
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