The evidence of the past two decades is clear. The tech/info/ ecommerce (TIE) sector — which we will define below — and the closely related tech/info subsector, have consistently produced faster job gains, at higher pay, than the rest of the economy.
Focusing on the period since 2019, the tech/info/ecommerce sector has become essential as a source of good jobs. Propelled by massive investments in cloud computing, artificial intelligence and broadband, tech/info industries such as software, computer systems design, and computing infrastructure have generated hundreds of thousands of new jobs. In addition, ecommerce industries have added roughly 900,000 jobs over the same stretch.
All told, tech/info/ecommerce employment has risen by 18% since 2019, compared to a 4% gain in the rest of the private sector. Moreover, average weekly pay in the TIE sector is 47% higher than other private sector jobs.
That’s on the national level — what about the impact of tech/info/ecommerce jobs on local economies? We’ll show in this paper that counties with a strong TIE presence have stronger job growth in the rest of the private sector as well.
In particular, we will show that the top 25 counties, as ranked by the PPI Tech/Info/Ecommerce Job Index, reported a median non-TIE private sector job gain of 5.8% between 2019 and 2023. That’s compared with a median 0.3% gain for the remaining large and medium counties. The somewhat narrower PPI Tech/Info Job Index showed a similar difference in job growth between high-ranking counties and everyone else.
The implication: With recession now a possibility, counties with a strong TIE presence are better positioned to weather an economic slowdown.
