Kyala Brown (right) and her family have lunch at their new home in El Cerrito, California — Arab News SAN FRANCISCO, Sept 14 (Arab News): Real estate agent Kilby Stenkamp sees moving vans on San Francisco streets where she used to see building cranes and tech company hipsters.
A work-from-home trend kicked into overdrive by the pandemic is disrupting a city long a mecca for tech talent.
"People are leaving San Francisco, and they're taking their jobs with them," Stenkamp said.
"There used to be cranes on the landscape, now it's U-Haul trucks."
Tech workers who flocked to San Francisco to be near Google, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and other internet firms are moving to parts of the US where life is slower and the cost of living cheaper.
Tech titans are encouraging the trend. The exodus has left some downtown skyscrapers deserted, shops doubting reopening, and streets haunts of the homeless.
Rents here have fallen by an average of 10 per cent, while home prices in communities across the Golden Gate Bridge are climbing, according to real estate agents.
Facebook is changing its hiring practices to recruit talent far and wide instead of needing workers to live near campuses. The social networking giant said it even might save money, since it adjusts the pay for positions based on local cost of living.
Back in March, San Francisco became one of the first US cities to implement restrictions of moving around for work, school and other activities. Nearly six months later, life shows little sign of returning to the way it was before the pandemic, causing some residents to question whether to stay.
"Once upon a time, a reason why we wouldn't have wanted to move was because we had friends who had kids the same age as ours and we saw them all the time," said consultant Kyla Brown, who left the city for a town about 25 km away. "Practicality right now was the No. 1 priority; social life has all gone down the drain, thanks to Covid."
The family moved closer to Brown's parents for babysitting needs, and work is done by telecommute.
Twitter and online work collaboration tech firm Slack have announced employees can work from home indefinitely.
Online bulletin board Pinterest announced recently that it spent $90 million to cancel a lease for more Silicon Valley office space, saying it will stick with its current San Francisco offices.
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