SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio’s information technology industry generates an annual economic impact of nearly $11 billion and employs 48,000 people, according to the first report to measure such findings.
According to a news release, the report was commissioned and co-authored by Tech Bloc, a nonprofit organization that advocates for the local tech industry, in association with Port San Antonio. Much of the research was conducted by Trinity University Professors Emeriti Richard Butler and Mary Stefl.
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Other key findings in the report include:
- The IT industry’s economic impact of $10.8 billion has grown by 27% since 2010. It has more than tripled in size since 2000.
- The number of companies in San Antonio’s IT industry has grown from 1,095 in 2015 to 1,491 in 2020, a 36% increase.
- The IT industry private sector companies paid a total of $1.8 Billion in wages in 2020. The average annual wage paid to IT employees was $88,017, the highest average salary of all target industries in San Antonio and a full 60% higher than the average wages across all other industries in San Antonio.
- 16,417 IT professionals are employed by the defense, security and other federal entities in San Antonio, representing one-third or 34% of San Antonio’s tech workforce.
- The IT industry is somewhat clustered in geographic nodes of IT employment with the five largest tech employment centers being at Port San Antonio, Highway 281 North Corridor, Westover Hills/Highway 151, Rackspace/Windcrest, and the USAA/IH-10/Medical Center area.
- The largest concentration of young, smaller startup companies appears to be in the Downtown/Broadway-Midtown and Port San Antonio areas.
“Growth of our tech industry is key to our future local economy and prosperity. Jobs in our industry have high wages, and the future economy will continue to be driven by tech,” said Tech Bloc CEO David Heard. “This report examines the economic impact across all private and public IT sectors, including our federal and military industry. Though IT workers make up only about 2% of the total workforce in San Antonio, high average salaries in the IT sector represent a significant opportunity to raise per capita income levels in Bexar County if we can continue to grow tech jobs.”
The report indicates that while the industry’s economic impact has more than tripled since 2000, employment has grown more slowly. This is due in part to the relative shift of IT activity in San Antonio from the production of products to the provision of services. Key tech sectors in San Antonio include cybersecurity at Port San Antonio, cloud computing at Rackspace Technology, digital retail and commerce at H-E-B, financial technology, services and compliance at USAA and software as a service at Scaleworks.
Information contained in the report is based on the most recent workforce and economic data available through the end of 2021 from the Texas Workforce Commission and other sources, the news release said.
You can view the entire report below:
TB AnnualReport 21 Final by David Ibanez on Scribd