In a sign of changing times, Silicon Valley tech workers appear to be trading higher salaries for stable jobs.

According to the Mercury News, a study conducted by job-hunting platform Woo shows that engineers and tech professionals’ average salary request reduced by nearly 13 percent in the first quarter of 2016.

The newspaper reported that workers sought $142,174 in the fourth quarter of 2015 versus $124,285 in the first quarter of this year. Woo based its finding on information submitted by roughly 5,000 tech workers who use the invitation-only job-search platform.

"The general feeling is that something might happen," Woo's Chief Marketing Officer Nimrod May told the newspaper. "We're all traumatized by what happened in 2008."

This shift comes amid start-ups struggling to find funding and an unreliable stock market eating into the area’s IPO activity, the Mercury News reported.

Tech workers are also taking fewer risks with 83 percent of them applying for jobs at big companies as compared to only 77 percent who want to work at start-ups.

"They refuse to go to a startup after that because they have families," Kim Anderson, lead technical recruiter for Embedded Resource Group, said. "They can't afford to risk their employment."

Workers are not only willing but also looking to relocate – another indication that air is seeping out of the bubble that is Silicon Valley. Tech workers are attempting to swap outrageous costs of living for a better work-life balance, according to the Mercury News.

"People are changing their priorities," May said.

However, Eugene Lupario, who presides over staffing company SVS Group, disagrees. People who use the services of his company aren’t eager to leave Silicon Valley or be paid less.

"People are always asking to earn more if they're coming out of one job and going to another," Lupario told the Mercury News.