Hiring is definitely a good indicator of the bubble bursting because hiring indicates that startups are getting funding and they turn around and hire people. When the funding dries up, these same startups tighten the belt, the hiring drops and then the layoffs start.<p>A good indicator of a bubble in SF&#x2F;SV startups is measuring the IT job market using local Craiglist and Dice job postings since startups heavily use them.<p>I used both websites on &amp; off since the late 90s to find contract &amp; permanent full-time jobs. Back then at the height of the dot-coms, the Dice home page showed 120,000+ jobs, right after the crash (2001-2003) that number fell to around 20,000-30,000. Now it&#x27;s around 80,000.<p>On Craigslist, at the dot com height, the Software section for the Bay Area (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sfbay.craigslist.org&#x2F;search&#x2F;sof" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sfbay.craigslist.org&#x2F;search&#x2F;sof</a>) had so many job postings per day that the list of postings for that day would spill over to the next page (there are 100 listings per page). A year &amp; a half ago (late 2014) there was a good amount of postings and I got a frenzy of replies when I contacted them. Now, there&#x27;s only a handful of postings per day.