New stats from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, covering 23 states, indicate that Texas is taking top honors for the having greatest growth among tech worker positions for the first half of the year.
Texas’s job creation was so good, according to job site Dice, that the state now ranks just behind California for having the most employed technology professionals. In total, Texas employs approximately 143,300 tech workers versus about 250,000 in California.
If you just look at state growth rates for tech jobs, however, California doesn’t even grace the top 10 for positions added during the first half of 2014. Texas increased its tech job count by approximately 6 percent after adding 8,100 tech jobs. “And, Texas’s tech employers are looking to the future, with plenty of mobile, Big Data and software developer openings on Dice from Austin to Dallas to Houston,” Dice president Shravan Goli said in a blog post.
There’s a decent explanation for why California doesn’t crack the top 10, however: Technology. According to a Dice spokesperson, speaking to Forbes, a number of companies are starting to employ technology in various aspects. Or, to phrase it another way, “every company is becoming a tech company.”
Consequently, a number of new areas are springing up as “tech hubs.” Smaller cities are ramping up technology-themed positions, which appear to be outpacing the growth that even the great Silicon Valley firm can produce. (There’s also the likely scenario that California is already pretty full of tech jobs, and would have trouble maintaining a consistent, huge growth rate.)
Other states appearing in the top 10 include Florida at No. 2 with a 5.64 percent increase, as well as North Carolina, which comes in third at 3.8 percent. While Dice didn’t present any theories as to why the latter’s growth rate for tech jobs is the nation’s third highest right now, it did specifically call out Florida’s remarkable turnaround as of late.
“In just the first six months of 2014, Florida created nearly as many tech jobs (4,100) as the state did in all of last year (4,500). Tech hiring and availability of professionals has become a campaign issue during the gubernatorial election,” Goli wrote.
via Want a Tech Job? Head to Texas | News & Opinion | PCMag.com.
Want a Tech Job? Head to Texas
