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Atlanta ranks third in STEM employment growth

There were smiles all around as one of the superconductive wafers the students made in a lab at Georgia Tech is successfully tested by cooling it with liquid nitrogen. High school students attend a camp in science, technology, math and engineering courses at Georgia Tech. As Georgia’s Hispanic population increases, many educators are trying to get more of those students in science, technology, math and engineering courses. Georgia Tech is aggressively recruiting Hispanic students. The percentage of Hispanic students there has nearly doubled, from 3.5 percent in 2013, to an expected 6.5 percent in 2014. Gwinnett County schools is working with Tech on a two-week summer STEM camp.

Credit: Bob Andres

Credit: Bob Andres

There were smiles all around as one of the superconductive wafers the students made in a lab at Georgia Tech is successfully tested by cooling it with liquid nitrogen. High school students attend a camp in science, technology, math and engineering courses at Georgia Tech. As Georgia’s Hispanic population increases, many educators are trying to get more of those students in science, technology, math and engineering courses. Georgia Tech is aggressively recruiting Hispanic students. The percentage of Hispanic students there has nearly doubled, from 3.5 percent in 2013, to an expected 6.5 percent in 2014. Gwinnett County schools is working with Tech on a two-week summer STEM camp.
By
Jan 14, 2015

If technological innovation is a sign of progress, then Atlanta is progressing nicely.

The only other Georgia rankings in the list are Augusta-Richmond County at 72, and the north Georgia area that is lumped in with Chattanooga, Tenn. While Chattanooga is third in highest annual median wage growth for STEM workers, Augusta is near the bottom at 97.

The analysis lists only the top and bottom five in each category, so Atlanta's wage ranking isn't listed.

That's good news, considering the fact that about a million of such highly skilled jobs are needed to ensure the U.S. remains competitive against the world's top innovators. In 2012, the federal government announced its plans to increase STEM jobs by that many over the next decade.

Given such high demand, WalletHub said, STEM careers are some of the most lucrative in the country, earning higher salaries and facing lower threats of unemployment compared with non-STEM workers. In fact, the annual average wage for all STEM jobs was $79,640 in 2013, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last year. That's 71 percent more than the national annual average wage of $46,440 for all jobs.

To help STEM professionals find the best markets for their valuable occupations, WalletHub analyzed the 100 largest metropolitan statistical areas in the U.S. across 11 key metrics. The data set includes such metrics as job openings per capita for STEM graduates, annual median wage growth for STEM jobs and the projected number of STEM jobs needed in 2018.

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About the Author

Nancy Clanton is a lead producer for The AJC's platforms team, but also writes stories about health, travel, events and entertainment. A native of Knoxville and graduate of the University of Tennessee, she has worked at the AJC for 24 years.

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