A report being released predicts robust job growth in Silicon Valley and the wider Bay Area economy over the next 10 years. But finding workers who are willing to put up with the area's high housing prices will be daunting. 'We're competing not just for companies, but we're competing for having families who want to and will be able to come and live here,' said Stephen Levy, director of The Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy, which wrote the report. 'That means they can afford a house, the schools are good enough for their kids, and they can get around. Even if we can attract companies, the companies have to attract workers.'

Another report, a survey of Bay Area executives published Thursday, forecasts job growth over the next six months.

'There's no question that there's growth on the horizon,' said Jim Wunderman, chief executive of the Bay Area Council, which produces a quarterly index of local executives' economic expectations. 'The question is: How do we support it?'

Levy's report predicts the Bay Area will add nearly 70,000 jobs a year through 2015. Of that, Silicon Valley probably will contribute 20,000 to 25,000 jobs a year.

The valley's expected job boost -- about half the number created here in 2000 -- is healthy, Levy said. And it's a long-awaited about-face to the valley's past five years of job losses.

'We have pretty good growth prospects, but it's not like the Internet boom,' Levy said. 'It's just getting back to where we were' in 2000.

The Bay Area's job growth outstripped the state's and the nation's during the late 1990s, and Levy expects the region to outshine California and the United States again over the next 10 years. He predicts that will happen because of a rebound in professional services jobs related to the technology sector and foreign trade and to the region's appeal as an international financial center and tourism hot spot.

But the headaches attached to living here could undermine job growth. 'The housing prices are out of touch with reality,' said Darien Kusler, who moved to San Jose from Portland, Ore., in April to join Sun Microsystems' sales team. 'I rent a two-bedroom condo for $2,500 a month, which is 60 percent greater than I paid for a mortgage on a five-bedroom home.' Kusler said the sacrifices of space and a higher cost of living will be worth the benefits of his professional experience in Silicon Valley -- but only for so long. 'I'll stay here long enough to satisfy my career goals,' said Kusler, 34. 'But when it comes to having a family, I'll definitely be moving out of the area, living somewhere where it's more cost-effective.'

Levy said cities can change this course by allowing more housing development, which should help ease home prices.

'Many residents do not recognize the potential damage to economic competitiveness posed by low housing production. They instead mainly see the problems caused by new neighbors,' his report said. Some Bay Area residents can expect the arrival of new neighbors over the next six months. The Bay Area Council's latest survey of more than 500 executives said more Bay Area employers -- and, specifically, more Silicon Valley employers -- plan to hire workers than at any time since the dot-com boom of the late 1990s.

In the survey, conducted Jan. 17 to Feb. 5, San Mateo County stood out as the place where companies hold the brightest prospects for the next six months. None of the 47 executives surveyed who run small, medium-size or large companies in the county plans layoffs, and 58 percent expect to expand their workforces.

Across the nine-county Bay Area, eight companies plan to hire for every one that plans to pass out pink slips. The survey does not capture the magnitude of the expected workforce changes, so there are no clues whether the number of workforce additions would offset the number of reductions.

However, Wunderman said, 'psychologically, business leaders are now really getting over the bust cycle and are looking to the future.'

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