The 714 and 949 area codes are the place to be
Irvine began as the vast ranch lands of James Irvine. When his son inherited them he formed the Irvine Company, and that land eventually became the city of Irvine. The University of California, Irvine was built in 1959 on part of their land, and the Irvine Company created plans to build a town around the campus.
In 1971, the city of Irvine was officially incorporated. It continued to grow beyond the confines of a campus town, and in 1999, Irvine had a population of 134,000 people. Now the city is listed as the 15th largest in the state of California.
The Irvine area code is home to one Fortune 500 company. Western Digital is “an American computer data storage company and one of the largest computer hard disk drive manufacturers in the world.” Area code 714 and 949 also contains four Fortune 1000 companies. They are Edwards Lifesciences, a medical equipment company, HCP, a real estate investment trust, TRI Pointe Group, a construction company, and CoreLogic, an analytics and business intelligence company.
Other major employers in the Irvine area code are the University of California, Irvine with 16,000 employees, Broadcom, Parker Hannifin, the Irvine Company, and the Irvine Unified School District. The Irvine Chamber of Commerce states that they promote the city “as a dynamic business and tourism destination.” They also aim to represent “the interests of more than 800 member and partner businesses, serving nearly 100,000 employees.”
Job growth in the Irvine area code is projected to be 41% over the next ten years, and the current unemployment rate is 3.3%, which is significantly under the national average of 5.2%. The three biggest industries in Irvine are professional, scientific, technological services, manufacturing, and educational services. 46% of the residents make over $100,000 a year, and the average household income in the Irvine area code is $92,000, which is much higher than the US national average of $53,000 per year.
Forbes chose Irvine as #7 on their list of “Best and Worst Cities to Find a Job in 2016.” The University of California, Irvine was also ranked #21 on the list of “Best Law Schools” by US News and World Report. Some of the most popular annual events in area code 714 and 949 are the Irvine Global Village Festival and the Southern California Half Marathon.