While unemployment may be a key political issue moving into the next U.S. presidential election campaign, tech workers in Silicon Valley have never been more in demand, with skilled engineers still being snapped up by the top tech talent in the area.

Firms like Google, Facebook and Ebay continue to say they are having trouble finding enough skilled workers to fill available positions, even as the general unemployment rate in the region continues to hover at 10.4%.

Talented software engineers in the valley are still seeing their services coveted by multiple players willing to outbid their rivals for capable employees in fields ranging from wireless technology, cloud computing, green tech, solar energy, software and chipmaking.

The sustained demand for programmers and engineers is also being driven by the continued uptake of smartphones, tablets, cloud computing and continued emphasis on social media.

In the telecoms industry, the San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City metropolitan area saw its employment figures stay stable at 5,700 for the fourth month running, while San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara also saw its figures hold for the fourth consecutive month at 5,800.

In terms of Internet Service Providers, Web Search Portals, and Data Processing Services, employment numbers were only marginally down at a projected 4,800 employees in San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara down from 4,900 the month before and 5,000 the previous month.

Meanwhile Semiconductor and Related Device Manufacturing jobs saw a small boost in the same area, with 29,500 employees up from 28,800 the previous month. Semiconductor and Other Electronic Component Manufacturing was also slightly up from the preceding month with 41,600 employees projected for July. There were 41,200 in July.