Tech Continues to Play a Major Role in NJ Economy, Cyberstates 2016 Report Says
The technology industry continues to be a major driving force in the U.S. economy, making up approximately 7.1 percent of the overall GDP and 11.6 percent of the total private sector payroll. In 2015, the technology industry added nearly 200,000 net jobs and now employs more than 6.7 million people.
Tech manufacturing, which has been trending downward in the U.S. most of the past decade, saw a slight gain in 2015 adding 3,700 jobs, suggesting that employment in the sector has stabilized. Tech manufacturing employs roughly 1.14 million people in the United States.
In New Jersey, tech continues to make a significant impact on jobs and the economy, a report issued by CompTIA, the IT industry trade association, called CyberStates 2016 said.
A news story on the report by the website New Jersey 101.5 reported by Matthew White stated that New Jersey ranked in the top 10 nationwide for tech industry employment and average wages.
“Compared to other states, New Jersey ranks 10th in terms of employment, and in terms of the average wage for tech workers, New Jersey ranks fourth in the country,” said Tim Herbert, CompTIA Senior Vice President of Research & Market Intelligence discussing the report with NJ101.5.
The tech sector employed 208,581 New Jersey workers in 2015, with an average salary of $118,490.
“This is almost twice as high as the average private sector wage in New Jersey,” Herbert said.
The tech payroll of $24.7 billion accounted for 6.3 percent of all private sector payroll in the Garden State. In fact, 7 percent of the state’s economy derives from the state economy with $37 billion in total economic activity.
“Technology certainly makes a significant contribution to the New Jersey economy,” Herbert explained. “New Jersey is higher compared to most other states in terms of the contribution of technology.”
These CompTIA numbers differed from recent estimates from the State of New Jersey’s Jeffrey Stoller, assistant commissioner of the Office of Research & Information, New Jersey’s Department of Labor and Workforce Development, who told a panel on jobs in central Jersey that at last count there were 360,000 jobs in the technology cluster in New Jersey, or about 11 percent of all of our private employment in the state.
“The average salary is $114,000 … almost twice the average for all the other industries in New Jersey. So instead of $60,000 it’s $114,000.” Looking back over the past 10 years, the average salaries for tech industries went up 37 percent, he added. You can find the complete story here.
CompTIA created an infographic about New Jersey’s impact, which we have published here. You can download the CyberStates Report here.
