The 'Great Stay' Hits Tech
The "Great Resignation" appears to be over in tech, with new research finding a 49% drop in first-year employee turnover. The trend is being called the "Great Stay," attributed to better onboarding and hybrid work, signaling a more stable talent market for companies like Apple.
This shift is underpinned by significant market uncertainty and a riskier job market, which has made employees prioritize stability. In one survey, the number of tech workers who would look for a new job after their company held layoffs dropped from 70% to 41% in just one year. The Bay Area remains the nation’s top tech talent hub and is seeing a particular surge in demand for employees with AI skills, which grew 24% last year. This has led to a rebound in office leasing in San Francisco, with AI companies leasing 1.1 million square feet in the first half of 2025. Despite the broader stabilization, the U.S. semiconductor industry faces a long-term talent shortage, with a projected 67,000 unfilled jobs by 2030. The sector is grappling with an aging workforce as demand for new skills in areas like GenAI accelerates. Amid these trends, Apple, alongside Meta and Nvidia, has been a primary driver of tech job growth in the Bay Area since the summer of 2024. This contrasts with a period between 2019 and 2022 when Silicon Valley's largest tech companies grew faster outside the region than within it. While compensation remains a factor, companies are finding success in retention through clearer career pathing and strong mentorship programs. For engineering roles specifically, strong retention is increasingly tied to a company's culture and the sense of making a valuable contribution to its success. The focus on retention is critical as the competition for specialized talent, particularly in AI, intensifies. Some elite AI labs are seeing impressive results; Anthropic has retained 80% of employees hired two years ago, significantly higher than competitors like OpenAI (67%).
