The job market for design and verification engineers seems to be exploding. In the past week, listings have been flooding onto jobs boards for LinkedIn semiconductor design groups. The only trouble is engineers may have to move to get the jobs—sometimes halfway around the globe.

There have been a bunch of job postings for semiconductor expertise in India, the United Kingdom, as well as places like South Korea (home to Samsung and LG), Switzerland (home to STMicro), and a smattering of offerings in Texas and parts of California outside of Silicon Valley. That either means companies are looking to cut costs by hiring workers in less expensive areas, or it means there are a bunch of new companies that have been financed coming out of the downturn to challenge the giants of tech.

My guess is both. That doesn’t mean Silicon Valley will disappear, of course. It’s still the core of innovation in tech, and it likely will remain so for many years to come. But it’s also an expensive place to live and do business, which is why there is a growing demand for expertise in other places.

Over the next six months, as the global economy begins its climb out of a giant economic crater excavated by ruthless bankers, financial traders and insurance companies, demand for jobs will pick up again everywhere. But what’s changed this time is that they’re being back-filled in places with the lowest overhead first, rather than stepping up operations in more expensive regions and then figuring out a way to offshore those jobs later.

The infrastructure for offshoring is already in place. Companies like Intel and IBM already have a major presence in India and China. And in a cyclical industry like semiconductors, you have to wonder what’s going to happen during the next downturn.

–Ed Sperling