Employment in Austin’s technology sector continued its steady growth in 2015, with a growth rate of 3.4 percent and a net gain of more than 3,600 jobs, according to a new report from a tech industry group.
Texas as a whole added nearly 14,000 tech sector jobs in 2015, according to the report, “Cyberstates 2016: The Definitive State-by-State Analysis of the U.S. Tech Industry.”
The report was commissioned by the Computing Technology Industry Association, a trade association representing more than 2,000 companies in the tech industry. In its 17th year, the report relies primarily on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the association said.
The Austin metro area ended 2015 with 109,243 people employed by the tech industry and more than 4,400 business that were classified as “tech business establishments,” according to the report. The average annual wage of Central Texas tech workers was about $103,000, compared with about $55,000 for overall private sector wages, according to the report.
“Innovation and technology are driving great, quality jobs and companies to Austin and Central Texas,” Drew Scheberle, senior vice president at the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, said in a written statement. “We must always be vigilant that we are creating an environment where IT and technology companies want to grow here.”
By adding 14,000 jobs in 2015, Texas raised its total tech employment to more than 585,000, according to the report. That is second in the nation to California, which has about 1.1 million tech sector jobs, according to the report. The average annual wage for Texas technology workers is $99,700, according to the report, compared with $54,200 for all private sector jobs.
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