Georgia’s technology sector continues to grow faster than national average making it a top 10 technology market.
The Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) recently released it’s 2017 “State of the Industry: Technology in Georgia” report which provides the current strengths and challenges affecting the technology sectors within the state of Georgia.
Julian Garza, President, Kinship Consulting, led the research team with Porter Research to assess the current state of the technology sectors within the State of Georgia related to talent, capital, and innovation.
The team poured through government and 3rd party data, as well as surveyed over 300 technology opinion leaders in the State of GA. The research confirmed that Georgia continues to be one of the top US technology markets – with both growth in technology employment and wages, with an extremely positive outlook. Georgia continues to grow as a major technology hub in the FinTech, Healthcare IT and media and entertainment sectors.
Summary findings include:
- Georgia’s technology sector is is one of the nation’s top 10 employment markets. Employment in Georgia’s technology private sector continues to grow — adding about 8,000 new technology jobs in 2016, which added about $ 1.86B in incremental payroll from 2015 to 2016.
- Georgia’s technology employment grew above the national average from 2015 to 2016.
- While GA technology wages currently lag other market leaders and is below the national average, GA technology wages grew at one of the fastest rates in the country from 2015 to 2016.
- The software and IT and Telecommunications sectors make up almost 50% of the total GA technology employment; the biggest technology employment growth came from the Internet and Multi-media; Software, and Biosciences sectors.
- Key talent clusters exist in the Georgia technology economy — particularly in healthcare, FinTech, communications and media and entertainment. Atlanta serves as the key hub, representing 68% of overall GA employment.
- Georgia’s invested venture capital declined by 4.6% from 2015 to 2016 — which is significantly less than the total U.S. venture capital drop of 20% during this same period. Key opinion leaders remain bullish on the capital outlook.
- Security, Cloud Computing and Big Data are the considered the most important technology initiatives.
- GA currently ranks below the national innovation index (100) with a score of 91.50.
The complete findings — presented in a nifty Tableau format – can be found at “2018 State of the Industry: Technology in Georgia” website.
The promotional video can be found here.
Employment and wage comparisons: Georgia vs. other key reference states
