Welcome to the state of Washington, the land of apples, asparagus and apparently, apps.
According to a new study titled “The Geography of the App Economy,” application development in Washington contributes 49,800 jobs with an economic impact of $2.7 billion. In terms of “app intensity,” which measures the number of app economy jobs relative to the number of jobs in a state, Washington is the most “app intense,” state in the country.
That’s about 4.5 app-related workers — anyone with a job related to app development (security, admin, customer service, etc.) — for every employee in Washington. With huge software companies like Microsoft and a budding Seattle startup scene, it does make sense that the state leads a nation that has produced about 519,000 app jobs.
California led the way in number of app-related jobs (152,000) and in economic impact ($8.2 billion). The study was released by CTIA-The Wireless Association and the Application Developers Alliance and conducted by South Mountain Economics, LLC.
This research stems from a February 2012 study that calculated the amount of app-related jobs in the country. It used online help-wanted ads as a guide to the location of App Economy jobs, “under the reasonable assumption that states with more want-ads calling for App Economy skills—such as familiarity with Android, iPhone, or Blackberry app development—will tend to have more App Economy jobs.”
