Connecticut’s job market has struggled to recover from the Great Recession, as the state ended 2016 with a net decline of 2,000 jobs for the year. Overall, CT has only recovered 70% of the jobs it lost during the 2008-2010 downturn.
In comparison, Massachusetts has added 313% more jobs than the amount lost during the recession, cites the Connecticut Business & Industry Association.
Opportunity Awaits
While CT faces some political issues that may cause unpredictability[1] , certain initiatives such as those in Hartford trying to spark innovation[2] serve as an example of how CT can reinvent itself to keep up with changes in the economy.
“Connecticut has the ingredients that make for a good environment for entrepreneurs — a smart work force, great higher-ed institutions. We just have never taken the ingredients, put them together and put them in the oven,” says Democratic State Senator John Fonfara, as quoted by the New York Times in an article on Hartford’s innovation efforts.
The Times articles also shares the views of an entrepreneur, Shana Schlossberg, who started a coworking space in Hartford that aims to get 100 small, high-tech companies to join and who says that there is no reason Hartford can not claim robotics as a specialty.
From this perspective, CT has plenty of opportunity to reinvent itself with a more innovative, tech-driven economy, both through public efforts as Senator Fonfara is pushing and private efforts as entrepreneurs like Schlossberg are demonstrating.
Like robotics, many areas of tech are still in their early stages, thereby leaving the door open for Connecticut to stake more of a claim in these areas and create more jobs, similar to how Massachusetts has benefitted from a thriving tech scene.
The Multiplier Effect
Not only does the tech sector offer employment within its own walls, but the often high-paying jobs tend to spur further job creation in other industries. A study by the Bay Area Economic Council, commissioned by Engine Advocacy, found that each job in the high-tech sector — defined as industries with a very high share of workers in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math — leads to around 4.3 other jobs in other local sectors. And these new jobs span income levels, ranging from dentists to retail clerks.
In comparison, finds the study, traditional manufacturing only has a multiplier effect of 1.4.
What CT Companies Can Do
While some high-tech companies may start in CT due to what’s happening in places like Hartford, existing companies should think about how they can become more tech-oriented themselves to improve their own competitiveness and potentially create more jobs in the process.
Already, the state projects that IT jobs will be among the fastest growing occupations between 2014-2024, with computer systems analysts growing by 24%, computer and information systems managers by 22%, systems software developers by 23% and applications software by 22%.
As employers make these types of hires, they can find ways to become more tech-driven, even if they don’t turn into full-fledged high-tech businesses. For example, media companies that want to deliver more of a digital experience will likely need to expand their IT staff, as do financial services firms that want to be able to reach their customers on mobile platforms. Even in cases where a shift to tech is more of a replacement for physical jobs, it’s better to make this change rather than waiting until the whole business is left behind and has to make layoffs.
Companies can also adopt new software that helps them add digital insight into something that previously did not have much of a technological component. With energy analytics software (EAS), for example, businesses gain visibility and analytics on their operations to determine energy management practices and process adjustments that will boost their efficiency.
These analytics can then have a multiplier effect of their own, such as if the newly gained digital insights help businesses improve sustainability, which then improves customer experience, thereby increasing profitability. As a result, the business has a greater opportunity to hire more employees, which can be in both tech and non-tech positions.
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Link to Artis blog “Don’t Wait for Predictability from Politics – Create It Yourself” once that’s posted
Link to Artis blog “How CT Companies Can Keep Up as Hartford Innovates” once that’s posted