High-Tech Industries and High-Skill Occupation in Austin-Round Rock Metropolitan Area
Austin-Round Rock is one of the fastest-growing metropolitans in the United States. With a population of 2.1 million people, it is the 35th largest in the country and the fourth largest in Texas. The metropolitan produce $134 billion of economic output in 2018. In the same year, there are 59,182 private sector establishments in Austin-Round Rock. This private-sector establishment employs 559,630 people and distributes $35,610,712 of wage in aggregate.
The main contributor to the economy is the young and educated population. More than 56% of the population are in the productive age. More than 71% of the population are earning at least a college degree. Along with economic growth, the median household income also grows from US$ 55,744 to US$ 76,925 (2010–2018). The median household income is higher than the US that falls at US$ 61,937 in 2018.
The metropolitan backbone industries are the high-tech industries, such as science and technology, and information technology. The information technology industries have the most diverse influential sub-industries, including 1) the hardware manufacturing of semiconductor, electronic, and communication equipment, 2) information technology services, and 3) data analytic and management. Besides information technology, there is also the growth of general scientific research. This major economy is the main cause for the development of other locally consumed industries such as health care, consumer services, consumer sales, real estate, automobile, domestic services.
Austin-Round Rock’s major occupations divide into two: high skilled works and low skill works. First, the high skilled workers are related to information technology, managerial, health care workers. Second, the low skilled workers are the people on the food services, retail salesperson, customer service, or office clerks. In this metropolitan, there is less influence on the middle-tech industry and middle-skills occupation on the economy.
This report is submitted for the Local Economic Development class. The full report can be downloaded from here.
