CEOs: VC-backed Tech Firm Sector on Road to Recovery

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Business Week’s CEO Guide to the Tech-Job Outlook raises hopes for an industry turnaround by 2010, with senior executives reporting that hiring at small, VC-funded firms is increasing.

According to the article, these are the 10 best and 10 worst cities for salaries in the Tech Sector (averaged across at least 15 reports from each company surveyed).

BEST CITIES (1 being the highest average salary):

1. San Jose
2. San Francisco
3. Seattle
4. San Diego
5. New York City
6. Washington, DC
7. Boston
8. Raleigh
9. Los Angeles
10. Austin

WORST CITIES (1 being the lowest average salary):

1. Kansas City
2. Cleveland
3. Pittsburgh
4. Madison (WI)
5. Orlando
6. St. Louis
7. Columbus
8. Cincinnati
9. Minneapolis
10. Philadelphia

This has been the worst tech sector recession since the dot.com bubble burst. Among the first fields to begin job recovery are cloud computing, computer security, business analytics, and IT services for government and health care. CEOs indicate that they are gradually and carefully lifting hiring freezes in an effort to bring in the best-of-the-best employees before the economy recovers and the competition for talent heats up.

A piece of good news is that after elimination of more than 118,000 tech jobs in the first half of 2009 (the highest number in 7 years), “two-thirds of senior technology executives recently surveyed by audit, tax, and advisory firm KPMG said they thought their industry would fully recover from the current economic crisis ahead of the overall U.S. economy.”

After a long and dismal dry spell, this may be the time for technology executives to polish up their executive resumes and begin testing the waters.