Publication

Iowa’s App Economy: A Summary

By: Michael Mandel / Elliott Long / 10.12.2017
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When it comes to tech jobs, global hubs like Silicon Valley, New York, and Austin get all the attention. But, to an increasing degree, our research shows tech-driven employment growth is not restricted to those high-profile areas.

For example, our widely-cited March 2017 report “How the Startup Economy is Spreading Across the Country—and How It Can Be Accelerated” demonstrated that the startup mentality could be found in many regions. And our new report (“The Next Ten Million Jobs”) finds that tech and tech-related jobs grew by 51% in the “Heartland” states from 2007 to 2016, only slightly slower than the nation as a whole. In Iowa, tech and tech-related jobs grew by 83% over the same period (Figure 1), accounting for almost one-quarter of private-sector nonfarm job growth (Table 1).