New Tax Credits Will Bring 2,600 New Jobs To San Francisco
In an effort to keep the state's employment numbers high into the third decade of the 21st century, the California Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development approved $44 million in tax credits on Nov. 10. The tax credits will be distributed amongst 89 different companies that have pledged to create 7,000 new jobs in the state. Three San Francisco-based businesses operating within the tech sector secured $8.55 million in tax credits in exchange for bringing 2,600 new jobs to the City by the Bay over the next five years.
NerdWallet, a six-year-old personal finance information service, will receive $3.25 million in tax credits for bringing 800 new full-time jobs to San Francisco by 2020. As of Jun. 2015, NerdWallet had 200 employees, but founder and CEO Tim Chen told a reporter with Tech Crunch that the rapidly growing company planned to add 100 new staffers by the end of the year. Additionally, Credit Karma, an eight year old credit and financial management platform that currently employs 250 people, will receive $2.80 million for hiring 800 new workers in the same time frame.
Stripe, a payment processing company founded in 2011, made the largest job creation pledge of the three San Francisco tech businesses. In order to receive tax credits totaling $2.5 million over the next five years, Stripe has committed to creating 1,031 new jobs. Although Stripe had only 250 employees as of Feb. 2015, it has experienced great success in appealing to security conscious developers and was recently valued at $3.5 billion. Given the bold steps Gov. Jerry Brown has taken to support the tech sector that has driven San Francisco to its highest rate of employment in 15 years, it seems that the unstable Bay Area economy of the recession era is well and truly over.
Mario McKellop is a freelance writer who has covered the pop culture beat since 2010.