The Brookings Institute, a nonprofit research organization in Washington, D.C., reported tech jobs are no longer concentrated in typical tech hubs — they’re finally dispersing throughout the country and growing in places like Tampa Bay.
The research article from Wednesday confirms there has been an expansion of tech jobs nationwide in the past three years due to industry changes and investments. It also shows two Tampa Bay metro areas — Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater and North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton — were among the 15 with the most growth in digital services jobs between 2020 and 2022.
It’s an optimistic look at how government and private investing — as well as trends in migration and industry — are changing where the digital world is clustered, Brookings researchers Mark Muro and Yang You write.
“At least for the moment, the spread of top-tier digital employment beyond the standard superstar hubs and into up-and-coming regional centers offers hope for a more balanced and geographically inclusive U.S. tech economy,” the Brookings researchers write.
The tech industry has historically concentrated in standard Big Tech hubs like Boston and San Francisco. In the past three years, metropolitan areas like Tampa Bay, Dallas and Miami have knocked Big Tech hubs down on the list of metro areas gaining digital employment, according to the Brookings report.
These gaining places represent the nation’s “rising stars” of tech, writes Brookings researchers.
In the 15 large metro areas with digital job growth, Tampa Bay falls behind cities like Dallas or Austin, Texas. But it matches, or comes close to matching, the digital job growth in cities like Miami, Houston or Nashville.
The data is also further evidence of the ideas championed by AOL co-founder Steve Case. Case has visited Tampa and spoken about its potential as a primary tech hub through his mission called The Rise of the Rest, where he promotes (and funds) the rising tech cities he envisions as the future of innovation.
But what’s different now than when Case visited in 2019?
These rising star cities have the perks of significant universities and the “Sun Belt in-migration.”
They’re also boosted by the decline in traditional Big Tech, especially the change in social media giants like Twitter and Facebook, Brookings writes. Heightened interest rates are also causing a cooldown in tech stock trading and a departure from tech’s standard growth mentality, causing record layoffs and reshaping. That all means less growth in Big Tech headquarters, according to Brookings.
The article also points to advancements from heightened investments that “broke out across the country in 2021.” While Tampa Bay wasn’t included in this proportionally, many of these regions were heated by investments in semiconductors and electronics.
Finally, economic development legislation streamed billions in government funding to the “rising star” areas and unactivated areas. Funding initiatives like the National Science Foundation’s Regional Innovation Engines program and the Economic Development Administration’s Regional Technology and Innovation Hubs stimulated the development of tech metros further.
Tampa was snubbed from the EDA’s tech hub designation but benefited from other EDA innovation-boosting opportunities.
“At a time when the nation badly needs to reconnect left-behind people and places to greater prosperity, this is very good news,” the Brookings researchers write.
