Study: Missouri tops Kansas in tech job growth
August 27, 2015 | Ashley Jost
Part of the Kansas City metro area was represented on a recent report of states showing the most growth for tech-related jobs.
Missouri hung on to the bottom end of Dice.com’s 17-state list at No. 15, showing 1.17 percent job growth in the tech industry during the last six months.
KCnext President Ryan Weber chalks it up to the pipeline of talent, to some extent. Weber’s organization works to grow the tech industry in the Kansas City metro.
“I would attribute that to the ability of the state’s education system to produce the talent that it does,” Weber said about Missouri, pointing to the University of Missouri and the Missouri University of Science and Technology in particular, which yield the bulk of the state’s graduates in tech-related fields. “In general, they’re producing more talent than the state of Kansas, which might explain why Missouri [made the list].”
Weber added that the Kansas City metro area currently has more than 2,000 open tech positions. Universities must help fill that need if the metro area is to realize its potential as a top tech hub, Weber previously said.
Dice.com used aggregated data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on hiring in computer systems design and related tech services to compile the list. Dice is a 24-year old website that focuses on technology job postings. The company has published a similar tech growth list using federal statistics for the last four years.
Minnesota topped this list with 8.36 percent growth, which the blog attributes to steady quarter-over-quarter growth during the last year.
Here’s the list in full, along with percentage increases in states’ tech populations:
- Minnesota (8.36 percent)
- Utah (5.75 percent)
- Nebraska (5.22 percent)
- Michigan (4.47 percent)
- Florida (4.27 percent)
- Massachusetts (3.75 percent)
- New York (3.58 percent)
- Maryland (3.45 percent)
- Oregon (3.42 percent)
- California (3.04 percent)
- Virginia (2.31 percent)
- Illinois (2.14 percent)
- Texas (1.97 percent)
- Ohio (1.39 percent)
- Missouri (1.17 percent)
- Georgia (0.96 percent)
- New Jersey (0.43 percent)
2015 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
Frustrated by the fit, this traveler-turned-swimwear founder crafted 10 pairs himself; now his trunk show is going global
Opening a popup swimwear store in one of Atlanta’s most upscale malls represented a surge of momentum for Tristan Davis’ high-end brand that began not on a beach or a runway, but in Kansas City’s tight-knit startup community. “We’ve gone from an idea in a handmade bathing suit to a high fashion mall in less…
Harvesting opportunity: How a KC chicken chain turned a strip of parking lot into its latest ingredient
Months before snow blanketed Kansas City this week, Todd Johnson transformed a weed-filled, unusable portion of parking lot at his Lenexa restaurant into a flourishing garden that serves up fresh produce used in kitchens at all three of his Strips Chicken and Brewing locations in Johnson County. In its first season, Moonglow Gardens — as…
AI evolved faster than rules to protect people; this founder wants to code ethics back into the tech
Amber Stewart sees what many overlook in artificial intelligence, she said: the human cost of unregulated technology that can manifest as anything from sexist and racist outcomes to outright theft from willing and unwilling members of the public. “I’m not afraid of the tech,” said Stewart, founder and CEO of GuardianSync. “I’m afraid of unfettered…
A romantic hideaway (for you and a book): Entrepreneur’s heart for reading opens store on Independence Square
America Fontenot didn’t plan to launch her new Independence bookstore on national Small Business Saturday — the busiest shopping weekend of the year — but renovation delays just kept pushing back the opening, she said. So while many small shops were offering Black Friday-adjacent deals to get customers in the front door, Fontenot’s The Littlest…