New York is in, San Francisco is very much out for tech workers relocating

• New York City gained the most relocating tech workers in 2023, SignalFire reports.
• San Francisco lost the most.

New York is continuing to gain on San Francisco as a rival tech hub.

The greater New York City area drew the biggest share of relocating tech workers last year compared to any other major city in the US, according to a new SignalFire report.

The report found that although a big share of workers left the Big Apple, it experienced about a 3.5% net gain in talent, making it the highest in the country. The most common move for tech workers in the San Francisco Bay Area was to New York, the report found.

In terms of the most-moved-to cities, the greater New York City area was followed by Austin and Los Angeles, according to the report.

Meanwhile, SignalFire found that the San Francisco Bay area actually saw its tech pool shrink by the largest percentage last year.

In terms of losses from relocating employees, the Bay was followed by the greater Seattle and Boston areas, respectively.

And while tech workers may have found the high cost of living in San Francisco was a factor in their moves, that doesn't paint the whole picture, SignalFire researchers wrote.

"What's clear is that cost of living doesn't purely incite these moves; NYC is in the midst of a tech talent boom," the researchers wrote.

Additionally, SignalFire's researchers wrote that they believe a big selection of the relocations were among remote workers whose new city might not necessarily be where their employer is located.

New York has proven to be a formidable locale for startups — second only to California as the state to receive the most VC funding in 2022, CNBC reported in December. The outlet also noted Sequoia Capital and other VC firms have expanded in NYC recently amid a succession of IPOs over the past decade.

Much has been made of San Francisco's dwindling tech scene after many workers fled during the pandemic — though some have recently speculated an AI boom could bring it back to life. Nvidia, for instance, is headquartered in Santa Clara, California.

The SignalFire report noted that the Bay Area is the No. 1 spot for AI talent.

"NYC may be stealing tech talent more broadly from the West coast, but it has a long way to go in order to catch up to the sheer volume boasted by the SF Bay Area and San Jose, California," the researchers wrote.