Report Highlights State’s ‘Hidden’ Tech Sector
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Sometimes referred to as Silicon Alley, owing to its purported small size, New York’s high technology sector has seldom been seen as a major player.
But a nonprofit group hopes to challenge that perception when it releases a report, due out today, that says that New York has more high technology workers than innovation meccas like Seattle, or even Silicon Valley itself.
The report, “Buried Treasure: New York’s Hidden Tech Sector,” counts tech workers at major companies that have offshoots in Manhattan — such as Microsoft, IBM, and Google — as well as those who work at research and development departments at medical institutes and other organizations.
Based on the authors’ unique accounting, the New York Metropolitan Statistical Area that covers southern New York and northern New Jersey has nearly 620,000 technology workers. That is more than twice the number of such workers in Silicon Valley. By contrast, Popular Science magazine in 2005 rated New York 39th among high-tech cities.
The new study looked at more than 180 companies that rely heavily on technology. It also recommends creating an Office of Science and Technology Enterprises within the mayor’s office and starting a “branding” effort to attract talent and financing for startups.
