Tech jobs account for 4.7 percent of employment in the Rose City.
BY JACOB PALMER | DIGITAL NEWS EDITOR
In Portland, tech jobs account for 4.7 percent of employment, which makes the Rose City No. 14 among the nation’s 50 largest cities.
The study, conducted by the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis, took the number of tech jobs and compared them as a percentage of total employment in the 50 largest cities in the U.S.
The national average is 3.5 percent, but in the San Jose area, the rate increases to 16.2 percent.
After a strong rebound from the Great Recession, Oregon tech jobs are now growing slower than the state as a whole – 2 to 3 percent on an annual basis, according to recent state data, compared to an overall rate of 3.5 percent rate. But the state’s unusually high concentration of hardware manufacturing skews the figures. Oregon tech is undergoing a historic transition as it shifts away from its long reliance on manufacturing work, where employment is flat. Software jobs, in comparison, are rising rapidly – up about 6 percent over the past year.
“It’s good news that we’re getting a big piece of where the growth is,” [state economist Josh] Lehner said. “We’re just starting from a much lower base.”
(SOURCE: OregonLive.com)
Portland has a higher percentage of tech jobs than New York and Los Angeles but fewer than Seattle and Boston.
