Want Your Community to Prosper? Embrace This.
This article is from our latest edition of The Rising Tide, a weekly online publication for economic developers and business people. To read more, subscribe?here.
As an economic development consultant, I work primarily in smaller and midsized markets and not what I refer to as NFL cities. In many of these places, I hear a frequent lament -- that many young people leave to go off to college and never to return.
The truth is that a digital technology transformation is happening in all industry sectors. Increasingly, companies are turning to automation, robotics, and a wide variety of digital technologies in what is becoming a digital economy.?
By 2025, the United States will have 25 million digital jobs—more than the number of manufacturing and construction jobs combined. These jobs will have a median salary of $80,000, nearly double the national average, according to?The Wall Street Journal.
That said, if I was to make just one recommendation, one single suggestion on how a smaller community can sustain itself and grow, it would be this: Increase digital literacy by requiring that every K-12 student learn computer science.?
And yet only 51 percent of U.S. high schools teach computer science in 2021, and only 10 states provide classes for all grades, according to a recent report by?The Code.org Advocacy Coalition, Computer Science Teachers Association, and the Expanding Computing Education Pathways Alliance.
Rural schools and urban schools with high percentages of economically disadvantaged students, continue to be less likely to offer computer science courses. Foundational is giving young people, really all people, access to broadband internet. That's where it starts as it has become a basic utility like electricity.
Brutal Facts
Currently,?our digital economy has largely concentrated its dynamism in five metropolitan areas -- San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Boston, and Austin. Those five metros account for 90 percent of innovation job growth in recent decades, according to a 2019 Brookings and Innovation Technology and Innovation Foundation report.?It is in there where digital technologies create trillion-dollar companies, where entrepreneurs become billionaire entrepreneurs, and where six-figure salaries are paid to workers in their twenties.
What's more, nearly 50 percent of digital service jobs are located in 10 major metro centers. As for the others, nearly 63 of the country’s 100 largest metro regions saw their share of tech jobs actually decline in the past decade.
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Do Not Give Up
Community leaders in smaller and mid-sized markets may be intimidated by those daunting numbers. But I say that they cannot throw up their hands and just give up on the belief that they cannot compete for digital jobs. You have to compete. Those are the future jobs and the best way for a community to remain relevant and grow is to substantially increase digital literacy. Again you do that by requiring every K-12 student to learn computer science.
That does not mean that every student should become a coder.?But all students need to understand computer basics in order to find, evaluate, interpret, research, analyze, and produce information critically, as well as to clearly communicate on various digital platforms. The future is there waiting to be grabbed. I say go for it.
Not Just For the Young
The goal of increasing digital literacy should not be only directed at young people. For older workers, keeping digital skills fresh can be the key to staying employed.
Recently, the AARP Foundation and Google’s philanthropy arm, Google.org, are joining forces to provide technology and digital skills training to low-income older workers ages 50 and up.
The Covid-19 pandemic has shed light on just how difficult it can be for some older workers to pivot amid a shift in circumstances.
Much of whether or not older workers can earn more and better compete for jobs comes down to their digital skills, separate research from the Urban Institute found.?The program’s training sessions, which are slated to begin in March, aim to help participants find jobs, change careers or become entrepreneurs. The program will be initially offered in Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Texas.
Dean Barber is the principal of BBA, a Dallas-based advisory firm, and publisher of?the weekly newsletter?The Rising Tide. For more information, go to barberadvisors.com
President & CEO of Ride On LLC
2 年Right on, Dean. Thanks for this.
Director of Economic Development - Windsor, Colorado
2 年Great post! As for your note about smaller communities losing talent and so much of it hyper-focused on the large tech nodes in the US, many of the companies located in those nodes are not pressing workers to return to the office and encouraging/allowing telework as you can do these jobs from almost anywhere. These jobs are a prime opportunity to add to local economies. There will always be a Silicon Valley, but there is not as much need to live in the costly communities around this node, there is less and less need to sit in the congested traffic associated with these regions, and workers will continue to realize they can program, design, and code from nearly anywhere. It's up to ED professionals and Community Leaders to create a connected and inviting atmosphere if there is interest in being such a destination for this talent.
Tree Farmer, Wood Sculptor, Website Developer, Happy Retired Old Guy
2 年I would heartily agree if you emphasize "information technology" rather than computer science. They're much alike but also different. Understanding information is critical to understanding computer science, but it's also the foundation of business and most aspects of life.
Past Board Member at Northeast Missouri Workforce Investment Board
2 年The top twenty jobs of the future emsi put out are tech jobs that if there was digital equity could be done anywhere even in small towns ! Will we give all our kids a chance for those twenty five million jobs?