San Diego Tech Roundup: Flud, Verve, and a “Swiss Cheese” Job Market

Here’s the important technology news from the past week:

—The latest jobless numbers for San Diego County remain unchanged—at 9.3 percent—from January to February, according to data released Friday by the California Employment Development Department. While unemployment in San Diego has declined from 10.2 percent a year ago, job creation is still anemic and the job market continues to look like Swiss cheese to both employers and job seekers. That’s because San Diego still has big gaps in certain technical fields, such as software development, according to Randy Franks, who is local managing director for the human resources firm Modis. He says, “We’re at a point where there’s over-demand and under-supply” for jobs with such titles as Web developer, desktop technician, network administrator, and network architect. County job data can be downloaded here; state data is here.

—The American Chemical Society (ACS) is unveiling an initiative for entrepreneurs tomorrow in San Diego. ACS leaders will outline their plans, which include twice-a-year entrepreneurial scholarship awards and an entrepreneurial resource center, at a news conference set for 9:15 am PST during its 243rd National Meeting & Exposition at the San Diego Convention Center. You can watch the ACS webcast of its news conference here. The ACS panel includes Rosibel Ochoa, Executive Director of UC San Diego’s William von Liebig Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology.

—Larry Smarr, evangelist for a fast-emerging sector called “quantified health,” is taking the

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Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.