Technology-based Jobs Here Suffered During the Pandemic but the Future Looks Better

by Dr. Patrick Jones

Communities covet jobs we once called “white collar.” The reason largely lies in the relatively high salaries earned by workers in those industries. But they bring other benefits:  more vibrant downtowns due to office-based work, greater support for arts and culture, and more parental engagement with schools.

Our Valley Our Future (OVOF) has highlighted the development of a technology “ecosystem” in its recent (March, 2022) Action Plan for the greater Wenatchee area as a “Gamer Changer”. One way of keeping track of this priority is via the growth of related jobs. Trends indicator 9.1.3 does this.

It first focuses on two sectors:  Information and Professional, Scientific & Technical Services. The former is composed of a variety of industries, traditional and new. The traditional industries include print media, broadcasting, telecommunications and motion pictures. The newer industries are all computer-based and include:  software publishing, internet search portals and data processing and hosting. Generally, the Information sector is a small one in a local economy unless it happens to be located in King County. So is it here. In 2021, Information industry jobs amounted to 334, by far the lowest of all the 19 sectors.

Professional, Scientific & Technical Services encompasses a broad swath of “knowledge workers.” Among them are the offices of accountants and auditors, architects, computer consultants, engineers, lawyers, management consultants and veterinarians. In large metros, these various professions employ significant numbers, typically placing the sector among the top eight by headcount. In smaller and more rural metros, the sector is typically small. In the two counties here, for example, the sector ranks 10th out of 19. There are, of course, “knowledge workers” in other private sectors, such as Healthcare.

State-wide, Information sector average earnings are, by far, the highest among all sectors. In 2021, for example, the average annual wage was slightly over $268,000! In the greater Wenatchee area? About $55,000.

The difference in size and pay, as you might suspect, has everything to do with computers. Jobs in the software publishing industry, statewide, numbered nearly 80,000 in 2021. Average annual pay?  About $315,000. Jobs in this industry in the greater Wenatchee area? Zero.

Jobs in data processing and hosting, statewide, amounted to about 15,000. Their average annual wage? About $205,000. The job count in 2021 for Chelan County?  Sixty-six, with annual earnings in 2021 nearly $79,500. Although this average annual wage was much lower than its counterpart average state-wide, it was nonetheless, $31,000 greater than the two-county overall average, viewable in Trends indicator 2.1.3.

The data source for indicator 9.1.3 and this discussion on earnings, the Washington Employment Security Department (ESD), doesn’t publish any detail about the industry breakdown within Professional, Scientific & Technical Services sector of the two counties. We are left with average annual earnings in 2021 of $61,850 in Chelan County and $73,000 in Douglas County. Contrast these county averages to the statewide average for the sector, at $125,750. Still, the average job in the local sector pays considerably more than the overall average here.

Since we don’t know the industry make-up of this sector in Chelan and Douglas Counties, we might consider approximating it via its composition state-wide. In 2021, the largest two categories in Washington were computer programming and system design consultancies, at a combined share of 28% of all jobs in the sector. This was followed by engineering services at 10%. Rounding out the top five were offices of management consultants and of lawyers.

It strikes this observer of the local economy that the mix here is different, with much smaller shares related to computers. As a result, offices of accountants & auditors as well as layers likely constitute a significant presence.

What, then, does the OVOF indicator in the Trends tell us about recent changes in employment in these two sectors? Essentially, slow growth until the pandemic. Then (2020) negative growth, with a decline of 13% from the prior year. This was not the case state-wide, where year-over-year growth dipped but stayed positive (green line in the graph). Thankfully, 2021 brought a local recovery. That recovery, however, has not compensated for losses in 2020 (and for those in 2019). In sum, over the last 5 sets of years, overall growth in these two sectors has been a minus 100.

One caveat. The data from ESD cover only those jobs that are tied to establishments located in the two counties. In other words, the numbers don’t capture professionals who may work remotely for a firm located out of county. But we simply don’t know how large this remote workforce for the two sectors is.

Census gives us a clue, via a “Work Destination Analysis,” part of a novel program known as On the Map. For 2020, it noted that nearly 2,500 residents of the two counties were employed in Seattle, 820 in Bellevue, and 540 in Everett. We know, unfortunately, little about the types of jobs, that is, the industries in which they worked, except that most of the jobs were in the private sector. It seems likely, however, that some of these occupations were in the two sectors tracked by this indicator but not assigned to the two counties.

Furthermore, within the next five years, this graph may well look entirely different. The planned build-out of Microsoft data centers in both counties will dramatically increase the number of workers in the Professional, Scientific & Technical Services industry “computer facilities management.” While data centers are capital intensive, they will at their ultimate build-out employ hundreds of workers. That will change the face of knowledge workers in the two counties.