Study: Maryland IT Industry Racing Ahead

In the 1967 film, The Graduate, Ben Braddock is just back from college, wondering what to do with his life. A family friend tells him there’s a great future in plastics, and he really should give it some thought. Better advice would have been: get into Information Technology.

IT continues to be an area of robust job growth in an otherwise sluggish economy, both nationally and right here in Maryland. Nancy McCrea, a researcher at Maryland’s Department of Business and Economic Development (DBED), recently discussed the findings of a national study from the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation. [See IT Job Growth is Strong in Maryland, by Nancy McCrea, MD Department of Business and Economic Development, MD Biz News, 05.Sep.2012.]  McCrea notes:

“From 2001 to 2011, a decade characterized by recessions and ‘jobless recoveries,’ employment in IT occupations grew more than 29 percent, faster than employment as a whole, which grew by only 0.2 percent. And over the course of the Great Recession, the country actually added IT jobs. The number of IT jobs grew by 6.8 percent between May 2007 and May 2011 while the number of jobs in the U.S. declined 4.5 percent.”

DBED decided to examine Maryland’s IT industry using the same methodology as the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation study. As it turns out, McCrea reports, Maryland’s IT industry outpaced the national average when it comes to job growth.

“From 2001 to 2011, Maryland employment in IT occupations grew more than 34 percent, compared to 2 percent for all occupations. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 742,000 new IT jobs were created in the U.S. from 2001 to 2011. Maryland added over 25,000 IT jobs during that time. And between May 2007 and May 2011, Maryland added 8,360 IT jobs, growing by 9 percent while the number of jobs overall declined by 3 percent.”

Other good news: the composition of the IT workforce changed during the same period, according to DBED’s research, migrating upmarket as lower-paid programming jobs went offshore, replaced by more highly-paid positions in software development. True, Maryland lost 2,230 programming jobs during the period, but it gained 2,280 software development jobs that pay, on average, 28 percent more.

The message? Maryland’s high-tech economy is going from strength to strength, continuing to show robust growth, even in the teeth of a slow recovery. We at the Murthy Law Firm are proud to be part of this growth. We will continue to serve the IT industry, here and across the country, so it can recruit the world’s best and brightest minds to keep the industry – and the economy – humming.

Copyright © 2012, MURTHY LAW FIRM. All Rights Reserved