How Will Tech Companies Impact The Bay Area?

Some of the large companies that come to mind when the words “Silicon Valley and Bay Area” are said include Apple, Lyft, Google, Salesforce, Visa, Twitter, Oracle. Many of these companies including tech companies have impacted the Bay Area in positive ways. Their innovation and expansion have caused the economy to boom, causing great growth in many job opportunities while providing equal job opportunities, and competitive wages. Without looking at the numbers and statistics for now, it’s evident companies are dominating the job sector by attracting potential candidates with unique perks and competitive wages. Apart from acquiring employees, many companies have provided further opportunities by uncovering the demand of ridesharing by onboarding

This has become a new untapped market that companies such as Postmates, Grubhub, Caviar, Uber, and Lyft have been part of. The numbers stated previously of the job growth are strictly opportunities to become employees, however they do not take into consideration the number of independent contractors that get onboarded. As stated by the tech startup DoorDash, they currently have “over 200,000 dashers around the nation and over 50,000 in California”. That is over fifty thousand people that have been impacted and given a new path to earn an additional income. Now keep in mind this is just from one company, there are several that offer independent contractor gigs available such as Amazon (Amazon flex), Uber/Uber Eats, Lyft, Instacart. Although the total number of independent contractors that are providing services from tech companies is unknown, there is data that “about 34 percent of Americans have freelance and contract jobs” report by software company Intuit predicts that number “will grow to 40 percent, or 60 million people, by 2020.” According to Heather Somerville who is a technology reporter covering startups and the venture capital industry for Reuters in San Francisco. Previously a staff writer for the San Jose Mercury News and the Fresno Bee. According to her article on The Mercury News, “The on-demand economy — born in the Bay Area — is the fastest-growing sector

When the Trump Administration implemented the travel ban from six Muslim countries, many companies opposed it. Tech companies still oppose the Trump administration’s revised travel ban that removed Iraq. According to Elizabeth Weise, who covers computer security, technology and Silicon Valley out of USA TODAY's San Francisco bureau reported on an article “On Wednesday, more than 150 tech companies, including Google, Facebook, Tesla and Uber, filed an amicus brief against the travel restrictions”. One of the reasons why many companies are opposed to the travel is according to the court document provided by United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit is that “The Order will incentivize both immigration to and investment in foreign countries rather than the United States. Highly skilled immigrants will be more interested in working elsewhere, in places where they and their colleagues can travel freely and with assurance that their immigration status will not suddenly be revoked. Multinational companies will have strong incentives, including from their own employees, to base operations outside the United States or to move or hire employees and make investments abroad. Foreign companies will have significantly less incentive to establish operations in the United States and hire American citizens, because the Order will preclude the ability of those companies to employ their world-class talent within