A new report by the Brookings Institution offers a detailed look at how high-technology industries are faring in Pennsylvania, and how the Commonwealth compares to the rest of the nation.
The 50 industries, which Brookings defines as those that spend substantially on R&D and employ at least 20 percent of their workforce in STEM-intensive occupations, include the manufacturing, energy and services sectors. This so-called advanced industries super-sector is “crucial to future prosperity in the United States, but face[s] substantial competitiveness challenges,” said the report.
As a whole, Pennsylvania had nearly 478,000 full-time workers (or 8.1 percent of all jobs) employed in advanced industries in 2013, ranking 23rd among the states. These direct jobs, with an average annual salary of more than $80,000, supported another nearly 382,000 jobs in other industries. Among the fastest growing statewide industries between 2010 and 2013 were oil and gas extraction (up 41.8 percent), foundries (up 13.9 percent), railroad rolling stock manufacturing (up 12.4 percent), and iron and steel products (up 12.3 percent).
Both Philadelphia at 43rd and Pittsburgh at 45th ranked high among larger metros in advanced industries employment.
“Nobody has deeper roots in industrial innovation than the Pittsburgh region,” says Dennis Yablonsky, CEO of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development and its affiliates. “Advanced industries are in our DNA, and we believe they are critical to our future.”
Brookings singled out Pittsburgh’s Aquion Energy, a Carnegie Mellon spinoff and maker of sodium ion batteries and energy storage systems, in a video.
Pittsburgh’s “sophisticated technology assets and experienced workforces…epitomize the kind of synergies a city can provide to a new company,” explains Mark Muro of Brookings.
Among small metro areas, Chambersburg ranked 43rd, with advanced industries accounting for 10.5 percent of its jobs.
Source: Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program, Allegheny Conference on Community Development
Writer: Elise Vider