How Cleveland’s High-Tech Sector is Driving Job Growth

Cleveland’s high-tech sector is growing at a rate of 9.1 percent over last year, according to a study last month named “High-Tech Employment and Wages in the United States” from the Bay Area Council Economic Institute. The Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor metro region was one of three Ohio metro areas in the top 20 fastest growing tech sectors in the country and far outpaced the US average employment growth rate of 2.6 percent.

High-tech job growth coast to coast

High-tech covers a lot of ground, from business phone systems and VoIP to IT services and IT support. It means more than just programmers and websites. There are actually more than 6 million high-tech jobs in the US, which represents close to 5 percent of the total number of jobs in the country. This is one reason that although there are certain areas of the country identified as Tech Hubs, such as Silicon Valley in California and Austin, Texas, there has been a trend in rapid growth of high-tech jobs in unexpected metro centers, especially in the former Rust Belt states and the mid-west.

High-tech earns more

High-tech workers, the study revealed, earn 17 to 27 percent more than their peers, and has outpaced job creation across all occupations at a rate of 27 to one over the past ten years. At the same time, unemployment in the tech sector has been consistently and significantly below the national average for the past decade.

High-tech brings in more jobs

The even better news for Northeast Ohio is that high-tech jobs have also brought a renaissance in professional employment. Every high-tech job has been responsible for creating an average of 4.3 related jobs, such as lawyers, dentists, teachers, cooks, and sales staff, according to the Council’s analysis of data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. In comparison, each manufacturing job generated 1.4 related jobs.

The future of high-tech

High-tech jobs are expected to continue growing at a rate of 16.2 percent over the next decade, so there will continue to be plenty of ways for entrepreneurs and creative businesses to take advantage of Cleveland’s tech boom.