Third, the BLS stats are a reminder that in many parts of the Bay Area, a great majority of people are working outside the technology industry. In the area the bureau calls San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara (actually comprised of Santa Clara and San Benito counties), those in "Office and Administrative Support Positions," a category ranging from bill collectors to gaming-cage workers, outnumber tech workers roughly 122,000 to 97,000. In the San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City area (corresponding to Marin, San Francisco and San Mateo counties), the tech worker population is outnumbered by those working in office support, sales, food services, financial services and management occupations.

So why does tech employment have such an outsize impact here?

The bureau's statistics suggest it's a combination of that high concentration of tech workers here combined with the wages the industry pays. In Silicon Valley, tech workers make up about four times the share of the workforce than they do nationwide — about 10.5 percent versus 2.8 percent across the entire U.S. labor pool. In the San Francisco region, 6.8 percent of workers are in tech occupations.

And the pay? Perhaps reflecting and partially feeding the unhappy reality of Bay Area property prices, tech wages here are the highest in the country. In Silicon Valley, the BLS says the mean annual tech wage is $115,870, the equivalent of $55.71 an hour. In San Francisco, the figures are $103,780 and $49.89. Those salaries are ahead of every other tech hub in the country.

A glance at the other end of the wage spectrum also provides some concrete evidence of the have/have-not divide that's led to our regional uneasiness over high real estate prices, Google buses and wealth inequality in general. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says there are about 50,000 software developers in Silicon Valley with an average annual wage of $130,000 or so. There are also about 55,000 dishwashers, manicurists, fast-food workers, wait staff, parking lot attendants and many others making somewhere between $19,000 and $23,000 a year.

Bureau of Labor StatisticsBureau of Labor Statistics

The Good News About Working in the Bay Area: For Many, Wages Are Very High