“U.S. Software Jobs Grow Twice as Fast as Overall U.S. Jobs.”

That’s a key takeaway from the latest report, Software: Growing US Jobs and the GDP, released in September 2019 by Software.org: the BSA Foundation. The growth number is startling, particularly given the strength of the U.S. economy in the past two years.

In addition to job growth in the software industry, the U.S. software industry economy expanded by 19 percent since 2016, contributing $1.6 trillion to the total U.S. value-added GDP in 2018.

Key findings reported by BSA in the report are:

• Software supports one in every 10 jobs in the United States. The software industry supports 14.4 million total US jobs across every economic sector, and the software industry directly employs 3.1 million people.
• Software’s impact on jobs grew twice as fast as the overall economy. Jobs supported by the software industry increased 7.3 percent from 2016 to 2018. By contrast, US jobs grew by three percent over the same period.
• Software’s economic impact grew by double digits in most US states. In 2018, 39 of the 50 states (plus Washington, DC) experienced double-digit growth. Additionally, software’s economic impact in four states—Nevada, South Dakota, Washington and Wyoming—grew by more than 30 percent from 2016 to 2018.
• Software jobs are growing quickly beyond traditional tech hubs. The ten states that experienced the fastest software job growth from 2016 to 2018 include Nevada, South Dakota, Wyoming, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Montana.
• New innovations are around the corner. The software industry invested more than $82 billion in research and development (R&D) in 2018, accounting for more than 22 percent of all domestic business R&D in the country.

The double-digit growth in the U.S. software industry is great news and we expect similar trends to be realized around the globe as software strengthens its relevance as a key enabling technology across all economic sectors.

For a software security company like Wibu-Systems, the reported industry growth is exciting, but it also means we have to work twice as hard to protect the industry from software piracy and continue to innovate secure licensing technologies that assure ISVs fully gain the software revenues in which they are entitled to.

You can see our latest software security technology innovations and how we protect global software publishers from revenue losses caused by illegal software copying, both intentional and unintentional.