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Statistics about the tech work force in the US. How many employees? how many work in private companies how many in public companies. How many companies are private and how many public? how many of the private companies are startups?
Hello! Thank you for your questions about the tech work force in the US. The short answer is that there are 7.3 million people employed by the tech industry in the US, and that 6 million are in the private sector. Of the 492,550 tech companies in this country, approximately 394 are public and 492,156 are privately held. Please see below for a deep dive of this research.
METHODOLOGY
To use the most up to date and valid information, I searched for statistics in this industry from US government databases and top demographic research sites such as the Kaiser Family Foundation. Where a direct number could not be found, I triangulated an answer with other data, as explained below. There was no information publicly available that separates government from other public jobs in this industry, so the employee numbers are shown here differentiated as public/government versus private.
TECH WORKFORCE STATISTICS
There are 7.3 million people in the tech workforce in the US. Of this number, 1.3 million work in the public and government sector, and 6 million are in the private sector. This differentiation was calculated with the following information: There are 120 million private sector jobs. Of this 120 million, 5% are employed in the tech industry.
(120 million)*(0.05)= 6 million tech private sector jobs
7.3 million-6 million= 1.3 million public and government tech jobs
Tech companies number 492,550 in the US. There is no data to separate this number into private versus public for this industry. However, if it is assumed that the tech sector follows the same trend as the US market in general, an estimate can be made of 492,156 private companies and 394 public firms.
7,176,526+5,734= 7,182,260 total companies
[(5,734)/(7,182,260)]*100%= 0.079% of companies are public
(492,550 tech companies)*(0.00079)= 394 companies in the technology sector that are public
492,550 - 394= 492,156 private tech companies
This assumption is a valid one to make as only 62 tech companies went public in 2015, and none went public in the first quarter of 2016.
OTHER INFORMATION
The majority of tech companies in the US are small to medium in size. Of all the firms, 99% have less than 500 employees. Interestingly, above and beyond the 7.3 million employed by the tech sector, there are 1 million "self-employed or sole-proprietorship tech workers in the U.S."
IT services led the growth in the industry in 2015 and 2016 with engineering and research & development coming in second in terms of job numbers. Growth in the industry overall was at 2% in 2016. Regardless of discipline, those employed in the tech industry have average salaries double that of those employed in other industries within the private sector ($105,400 versus $51,600).
CONCLUSIONS
There are 7.3 million jobs in the tech workforce in the US. Of that, 6 million are in the private sector. There are approximately 394 public tech companies and 492,156 private tech companies in the US. There are 47,000 tech startups. Information on salaries, sector growth, and company size has also been reported.
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