Life Sciences, Advanced Manufacturing, Environmental Technology, and Energy show significant growth in total employment, total annual payroll, and average wage, according the Pittsburgh Technology Council’s annual State of the Industry Report. We here at the Pittsburgh Technology Council recently released the report around the G-20 so all of the international media can have the facts on our industry. The last year data was available from the Center for Workforce information and Analysis from the Commonwealth was 2007.
The report considers data from the following counties:
Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Bedford, Butler, Cambria, Fayette, Greene, Indiana, Lawrence, Somerset, Washington, and Westmoreland.
Check out these stats for four of our industries:
Life Sciences
- 3.9% increase in the total number of jobs available: 121,630
- 12.9% increase in the total annual payroll: $6.6 billion
- 8.6% increase in the average wage: $54,417
Advanced Manufacturing
- 4% increase in the total number of jobs available: 22,409
- 17% increase in total annual payroll: $1.8 billion
- 12.5% increase in the average wage: $52,908
Environmental Technology
- 3.5% increase in the total number of jobs available: 33,129
- 12.6% increase in total annual payroll: $2.1 billion
- 8.7% increase in the average wage: $64,788
Energy Technology
- 13.8% increase in the total number of jobs available: 30,448
- 15.9% increase in the total annual payroll: $2.075 billion
- 1.8% increase in the average wage: $68,150
Now it wasn’t all good news. The information technology and advanced materials sectors saw significant down turns. IT employment was down 11.5% and advanced materials were down almost 7%. The IT number is odd to me since of the 1,000 jobs listed on the PGH Career Connector; over 50% of them are IT jobs, specifically software and programming jobs.
Overall it looks like the technology industry is in excellent shape and continuing to grow. The energy sector specifically is a sector to watch. With advances in natural gas and the coal industry it will be very interesting what these numbers look like over the next couple of years. The number of jobs available should continue to rise steadily and be a anchor sector for our region.
Finally, the tech industry in southwest PA accounts for only 11.2% of the companies but makes up nearly 30% of the regions wages! That is something to be proud of and something to take note of.
Filed under: Job Market, Research, Technology
