In the midst of our region’s economic struggles, it’s been generally hard to find positive economic news. But our tech sector has been doing relatively well.
The latest hard evidence of that is found in a report issued last month from tech search firm Dice Holdings, Inc. that showed Sacramento ranking #4 nationally for “Fastest Growing Cities for Technology Jobs,” with 37% tech job growth over the past year.
As the report pointed out, “From north to south, California has more to offer tech professionals than just Silicon Valley. In Sacramento, firms in healthcare and technology are hiring and tech paychecks have jumped six percent year-to-year to $87,000 on average.”
Who would’ve thought that we’re doing that well on a national scale? Probably not even some who are directly involved in our regional tech sector.
Raleigh, N.C., Richmond, Va. and Houston are the top three, by the way, with Kansas City, Portland, Ore., St. Louis, San Diego (the only other California region on the list), Boston and Denver rounding out the top ten.
What this report demonstrates is that we’re clearly doing some things right here and that tech continues to have high potential to become an even more important part of our overall regional economy.
Obviously we see SARTA playing a key role in that process. The fact that our area is achieving one the nation’s highest tech employment growth rates give us an additional boost to work even harder on our own and as part of regional efforts such as the Next Economy to identify and exploit opportunities to achieve even better results.
One of SARTA’s key goals is to help Sacramento become a nationally recognized center of technological innovation. Certainly this recognition helps in that regard.
But we need to be sure to further take advantage of our region’s advantages – university relationships, a deep talent pool, affordability, great recreation and proximity to Silicon Valley as the center of the tech universe – to continue this positive trend.
We’re confident we will and am excited to be a part of it.
Norah Brennan
Great article. My team and I just came back from a trip to the Colliers International office in San Francisco.The SF tech market is doing great! It’s our hope technology companies will continue to see the benefits of lower prices and quality of life that Sacramento has to offer. I appreciate the article and was happy to gain further validation of what I already new to be true.
Evelyn Milani
As a local recruiter, I see technology hiring increasing in Sacramento. We have a great opportunity to leverage our regional assets by building a solid pool of technical talent that will attract and inspire innovation.
From my perspective, we should continue building bridges that connect education (even early education) to businesses in order to communicate current and long term technology skills-requirements. More importantly, we need to foster an on-going awareness of technology opportunities in our community to our future workforce.
I hear from local employers that they need people who have built and supported “enterprise-level” systems and software. We can leverage mentorship programs or internships for people who are starting out in technology to gain experience in large environments like State Government or larger employers such as VSP and Intel to get experience while in college, thereafter, moving them into local companies.
Let’s foster ongoing communication between business and education (at all levels), build an awareness of opportunities for our future workforce and organize the efforts of workforce training and preparation so Sacramento will thrive.