Peek inside the Pittsburgh region’s State of the Industry 2023 tech report

Every fall, the North Side-based tech trade association Pittsburgh Technology Council releases its annual State of the Industry report taking a closer look at the13-region county’s tech trends over the previous three years. In 2022, for instance, the report laid out a mixed bag of findings, including that although wages had increased, the workforce had failed to increase along with it.

The report’s authors make their assessments by examining six main industry clusters — information technology, life sciences, advanced manufacturing, advanced materials, environmental technology and energy technology — in terms of job growth, average wages and number of establishments, plus other markers of economic success.

Now, the newly released 2023 report shows that, similar to last year, Pittsburgh is still experiencing mixed rates of growth. On the one hand, the report says, the region has annual payroll growth and thriving life sciences and information technology sectors working in its favor.

See the report

Some big stats from the report: The region counts more than 10,500 tech companies (down from around 11,200 in the previous report) representing nearly a quarter of its workforce. And as of 2021, eight local universities account for the more than 12,600 science, engineering, and health field graduate students, 78% of whom graduate from University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University.

However, in the report’s opening letter from Pittsburgh Technology Council President and CEO Audrey Russo, she cited Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland data offering less positive data. Namely: What hasn’t changed for the Steel City is that its employment rate remains below pre-pandemic levels. Additionally, the city’s population has continued to decline while the city’s per capita income remains at the bottom quartile of the 50 most populated metro areas.

Although not all the news outlined in the State of the Industry report was good news, Russo advised that instead of feeling disheartened, the region’s leaders should take the presented info as an opportunity to think of ways to invest in the city. She also pointed to the resources the Pittsburgh Technology Council offers (think: Apprenti PGH) and stressed the need to prioritize education.

“These are not uplifting findings, but shining a light on this should compel us to prioritize investments in people — from early childhood programs to growing the variety of educational programs — are what could change the trajectory for us,” Russo wrote.

She added that the region has a responsibility to ensure that it understood the changing world of tech so that Pittsburgh could live up to its potential.

“The good news is that more of our region’s workforce are working in tech and innovation,” the exec wrote. “The not-so-good news is that we need to ensure that more people are a part of this growth.”

Atiya Irvin-Mitchell is a 2022-2024 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Heinz Endowments.