The U.S. technology industry is no longer centered in a handful of coastal cities.
South Florida is among nine "rising star" metros that added jobs at a brisk pace in the years before the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a new report from Washington, D.C.-based think tank Brookings Institution. Those metros collectively generated 87,000 new tech jobs between 2015 and 2019, creating substantial new hubs outside of traditional industry cities like San Francisco and New York City.
"By growing rapidly and increasing their share of the national tech sector, these metro areas were delivering on the promise of tech spreading out to create sizable new ecosystems in the 'rest' of America," the report said.
In addition to the Miami area, Brookings' "rising star" cities include Atlanta; Dallas; Denver; Orlando; San Diego; Kansas City, Missouri.; St. Louis; and Salt Lake City.
Together, those metros added 14,000 tech jobs during the first year of the pandemic, at a time when employment at some dominant "superstar" cities began to slump. Job growth in San Jose, California, for example, slowed from 5.3% pre-pandemic to 1.9% in 2020. In Los Angeles, it dropped from 5.6% to 0.2% and Boston lost jobs in the sector.
But in South Florida, tech job growth continued into 2021. Ads for tech gigs were up 29% between the first and second quarters of last year, and the tri-county area had 14,000 postings for open tech jobs last June.
"The tech sector’s 'superstar' geography may be entrenched, but it’s not necessarily immutable," Brookings reported. "The first year of the pandemic showed that."
Other takeaways from the report:
- The eight cities deemed "superstar" metro areas are Austin, Texas; Boston; Los Angeles; New York City; San Francisco; San Jose, California; Seattle and Washington, D.C. Those hubs encompassed 1.5 million tech jobs in 2019, or 38% of the nation's tech employment.
- In contrast to major tech hubs, where growth slowed in many cases, a sizable number of U.S. cities experienced upticks in tech employment in 2020. Thirty-six of the 83 metro areas outside of "superstar" and "rising star" cities saw tech employment jump during the first year of the pandemic, partly driven by a sharp increase in remote work.
- The share of new tech firms created at superstar metros declined 2% between 2020 and 2021, but grew 0.4% in rising star cities. In Miami, startup share gains increased from 1.9% to 3.7% during that period.
- A number of college towns and vacation communities saw tech employment surge in 2020, likely reflecting the rise of "Zoom towns" driven by new residents working remotely. They include Pensacola; Tallahassee; Santa Barbara, California; Boulder, Colorado; and Ithaca, New York.
For more stories like this one, sign up for Miami Inno newsletters from the South Florida Business Journal and the American Inno network.
