Where’s city’s tech talent?
Decision illustrates region remains low on high-tech talent
Amazon’s HQ picks show that the region must make moves to deepen its tech pool and reputation.
The decision by Amazon to put a pair of headquarters in New York and Virginia came as a wake-up call to Houston that it needs to step up its efforts to deepen the region’s pool of tech talent.
“Houston simply must be in this game,” said Bob Harvey, CEO of the Greater Houston Partnership.
Amazon announced Tuesday that it would invest $5 billion to create two additional headquarters in New York City and the Washington, D.C., suburb of Arlington.
Houston was ruled out as a candidate in January.
The city had hoped to lure the Seattle retail giant to a 4-mile stretch between downtown and the Texas Medical Center it is calling its Innovation Corridor.
“At one level, I was not surprised,” Harvey said of hearing the announcement. “It’s been our belief for a year or so that Amazon would be drawn to cities with deep digital talent. … Their message to Houston was that we didn’t have the depth of tech talent.”
New York City and the Washington region are flush with digital talent, such as web designers and software developers.
A study released in July by commercial real estate investment firm CBRE on the top markets for tech labor pools and appeal to tech employers ranked Houston
No. 32 out of the top 50 U.S. and Canadian metropolitan regions it analyzed. Washington was No. 3 and New York City was ranked No. 5. Austin was No. 6.
The study said Houston has 26,000 software developers and programmers, versus New York City’s 97,000 and Washington’s 71,000. Among those in Houston, few are involved in e-commerce, the backbone of Amazon.
For Houston, it is a chicken and egg problem: There’s not enough talent in the labor pool to attract the right kind of companies, and the labor pool is struggling to grow without high-tech employers.
“In the short term, we are reaching out to Austin and we are reaching out to California, and we’re finding companies that are interested in moving to Houston,” Harvey said. “The long-term solution is to develop this talent here locally.”
Harvey said developing the city’s Innovation Corridor will attract technology companies and in turn help create a desperately needed digital economy in Houston. The Innovation Corridor would run along the Metro light rail line from downtown to the Texas Medical Center and include several large companies, Rice University, tech startups, venture capital, private equity shops, museums, restaurants and housing.
Harvey said that in the end, tech companies will want to come to businessfriendly Texas.
“We’re very fortunate in Texas that this is an easy, low-cost place to live, and it’s very friendly to business,” Harvey said. “We’re not as competitive as we need to be, but the good news is we’re making good progress.”