AUSTIN, Texas — In its 2020 emerging jobs report, LinkedIn named Austin the top market of its size for emerging jobs. In the report, Austin was followed by Raleigh-Durham, Pittsburgh, Portland and Charlotte. According to the report, technology-related jobs are some of the fastest growing jobs in the U.S.
According to the Chamber of Commerce, over the past five years high tech industries in Austin have grown by about 25% and about 16% of all jobs in the city are in tech.
Jason Heilig, the director of technology at Projeckt202, moved to Austin from Dallas four months ago.
"My wife is a big piece of moving here," said Heilig. "She is a senior designer and they're doing AR and some of those emerging technology that people are excited about."
He now oversees the development of apps for various companies. He says the city has some real advantages over California.
"They kind of call it the Silicon Hills, right? It is similar to the Bay Area without the Bay Area cost," Heilig said. "You have the technology that exist here and the strong culture around it, which is enjoyable."
Jenny Szakonyi is a technical recuter for Projekt202 in Austin and California.
"A lot of tech companies are moving into Austin because they can find high-skilled technical talent and developers who will not cost them as much as someone in San Francisco and someone on the West Coast," explained Szakonyi.
Cheaper labor may be why tech companies move to Austin, but she says the culture is why they stay.
"Austin is very laid back," Szakonyi said. "Austin has a very welcoming feel, and you can come into a company as a developer and wear a bald cap and shorts and no one will care."
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She says Austin has a sense of community that you can not find in California.
According to the job report, the top emerging jobs with the highest growth are artificial intelligence specialist, robotics engineer, data scientist, full stack engineer and site reliability engineer.
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