The pandemic shutdown has made relocating an easier decision for IT professionals living in the increasingly more expensive tech hubs of the nation.
With 61% of tech employees now working fully remotely because of COVID-19, a survey by .Tech Domains found the
vast majority of tech talent living within 30 miles of large tech centers are thinking of moving. Some already have.
“As Covid-19 accelerates remote work environments for the tech workforce, many are using the flexibility to pursue more affordable lifestyles,” says Suman Das, brand director at .Tech Domains.
Millennials are feeling the urge to relocate even more acutely than older tech workers. Younger and therefore less senior in both career and pay scale, the millennial professionals in the survey were 15% more likely to be thinking of relocating.
They’re also giving more thought to taking on gig jobs than ever before. While almost three-quarters of all full-time employees say they are more likely to freelance now than before the pandemic hit, 84% of millennial IT professionals say that.
Relocating to lower cost areas and picking up side work are considerations driven by any number of factors, but certainly worries about being laid off or furloughed are high among them.
When the tech-focused job site Hired surveyed 2,300 tech workers in July, it found large percentages of them “concerned” or “very concerned” about losing their job in the next several months. Among those in the San Francisco Bay Area, 53% expressed concern about being laid off. In New York, 42% shared that worry.
The worry is not unjustified. Technology firms in the Bay Area were quick to shed jobs in the early months of the pandemic shutdown. From a high of 130,400 employees in February, the information sector shed almost 13,000 jobs in less than two months.
Still, unemployment among tech workers nationally was 4.6% in August, well under the 8.4% nationally.
Photo by marek kizer
