The IAB in the USA (Internet Advertising Bureau) have just updated their “Economic Value of the Advertising-Supported Internet Ecosystem” (pdf) in conjunction with The Harvard Business School. Originally released in 2009 covering 2007 the current update reviews 2011 and highlights the changes in the past 4 years.
On their Internet GDP definition they say it’s “… close to double 2007 figures, and accounted for 3.7 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), an uptick from 2.1 percent four years ago” We reckon this is an annual growth rate just over15%.
They, sort of, confirm our previous mentions of the states where technology predominates (in employment terms) listing the top 4 as New York, California, Massachusetts and Washington.
On the Internet Industry Direct employment front they estimate that throughout the US this has again almost doubled as per the above table. We calculate the growth rate to be in excess of 18% per annum.
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As far as the UK is concerned on an assessment by The Boston Consulting Group, that we have quoted from before, the UK comparatively is well ahead of the US in both the proportion of GDP, accounting for 8.3% in 2010 versus the US at 4.7% and also their projected growth rate through 2016 of almost triple that of the USA.
We have seen employment figures indicating a Digital Economy Employment Share of 5% in the UK. Given a working population/taxpayers of around 30 million that implies over 1.5 million employed in this sector. Using the US growth rate (which might be conservative) 18% thereof could be over a quarter of a million additional jobs a year. Some of course would be of a displacement nature.
As far as location is concerned we see that adzuna & DUEDIL recently collaborated in producing an infographic on Startup Vacancies and whilst they of course don’t all relate to the internet/technology sectors the geographic split is interesting although somewhat Londoncentric!
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| Startup Vacancies | ||
| # | % | |
| London | 1,627 | 60.3% |
| South East | 390 | 14.5% |
| East Anglia | 190 | 7.0% |
| North West | 141 | 5.2% |
| South West | 94 | 3.5% |
| Scotland | 67 | 2.5% |
| West Midland | 64 | 2.4% |
| Yorkshire & the Humber | 41 | 1.5% |
| East Midlands | 37 | 1.4% |
| North East | 30 | 1.1% |
| Wales | 8 | 0.3% |
| Northern Ireland | 8 | 0.3% |
| 2,697 | 100% | |
| Source: adzuna & DUEDIL Late September ’12 | ||
DUEDIL has a blogpost on the work they did with a useful link to 330 startup companies throughout the Greater London area.
