Employers pay what they have to, not what they can. Qualcomm never payed good salaries, it was always about the stock. Like most big companies they always have job openings, but are they actually hiring for them is the question. Often a company will leave a req open even if they have a hiring freeze, because it would look bad.
Overall San Diego pays middle of the road to higher end wages, but the cost of living is so much higher here. The argument that companies can’t find qualified workers is bunk, except in certain specialized fields. Bio-tech and certain hardware specialties I could believe.
IT has a boom/bust cycle that is often not in tune with the general economy. It so happened last time that the two were in tune because IT was the bust. The time before that Defense went bust and San Diego was a huge defense town. This time I don’t think the general recession will affect IT as much. I think that where we are at right now is the tail end of a small boom in our industry, heading into a cooling off or small recession. The economy at large however is heading for something much larger.
Lots of companies, mine included, hired like mad up till recently. That seems to be cooling some. I would imagine Qualcomm is no different.
