There's a lot more to employment than engineers. This really goes to show just how vanishingly small our field/industry is compared to the overall economy.

Things are red hot for software engineers in the Bay Area, they are way less peachy for just about every other field.

I don't see why it is surprising. Tech employs quite a small percentage of people in the bay area.

I think it has to do with the number of tech jobs that are based in those cities. I'm from the midwest and am working out of an apartment in SF so I have no idea what I'm talking about it, but it seems like a lot of startups are based out of places that are "closer" to the tech scene.

Again, I'm still getting used to the whole scene, but the center of everything really seems to be further south.