The Blog

Rogers Weed, Director, Department of Commerce Rogers Weed, Director, Department of Commerce

05/05/10

TechAmerica Foundation released their 13th Annual Cyberstates Report placing Washington on top of the list nationally for software publishing. The report shows our total high-tech sector added jobs for a 5th straight year. Washington’s high-tech employment grew through the recession, even as national industry numbers saw a 4 percent slide in 2009.

Software publishers are the largest sector, and we continue to rank #1 in the country ahead of California.

Additional strength in computer systems design, engineering services, electromedical equipment manufacturing and R&D and testing labs show the entire sector continues to be a leading creator of high-paying jobs across our state’s economy. Our 186,800 high-tech workers earned an average wage of $97,900 – third in the nation and 113 percent above the state’s average private sector wage.

Major corporations from out of state and from overseas are attracted to Washington's highly skilled workforce in engineering, technical sales and support, and business development.

In their competitiveness study for the Department of Commerce, McKinsey & Company similarly found Washington’s strength in software to be a clear economic advantage. The McKinsey work also pointed out that our software skill base is more IT-oriented than most states, indicating unrealized potential for focusing on software that extends to other industry sectors such as energy, life sciences and aerospace and defense.

The role of software is dramatically increasing in many industries including aerospace, life sciences and manufacturing. At Commerce, we believe this growing importance of software is one of three macro, cross-industry trends that right now have the potential to generate disproportionate economic success for Washington state. (The others on our list are the shift of economic power to the Asia region and the clean energy transition.)

For example, in a Boeing 777 aircraft there are approximately 2.6 million lines of computer code. The new 787 Dreamliner has more than 6.5 million lines and an F-35 military aircraft tallies more than 19 million lines. Information and communication technology is meeting clean energy on the smart grid, and in global health and life sciences it’s breaking new ground in bioinformatics.

Playing to our historic economic strengths, such as software, makes good sense and when those strengths align with game-changing global economic trends, a pathway to success is clear for Washington employers and workers.

Washington is one of the world’s leading innovation hubs. With continued support and a sharper focus on the needs of our key industry sectors, including high-technology, imagine where we can grow from here.