Miami tech has the buzz, but does it have the jobs? We’ve got the data
It’s a question on the minds of many in Miami-Dade: How real is the city’s tech boom?
New data sheds some light.
The Miami-Dade County data show advanced industry occupations, including what the U.S. government calls computer systems design and software publishing, constituted 6.5% of the county’s labor force as of the first quarter of 2021, or approximately 62,000 workers out of a workforce of more than 952,000. That is up from 5.3%, or nearly 43,000 out of 802,000, in 2010. (The advanced industry sector also includes manufacturing.)
A county official also provided data showing science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)-based occupations in the Miami metropolitan area, which includes Palm Beach County, climbed 12% between 2015 and 2020, the earliest and most recent periods, respectively, for which data are available.
South Florida had 98,390 STEM jobs in 2015 and 110,790 STEM jobs in 2020. That equates to 4% of the region’s labor force in 2015 and 4.4% in 2020. While STEM data may more accurately capture the extent of technology employment since they do not include manufacturing, those data were not available at the county level.
It may take until at least next spring before the Miami tech trend is fully captured. The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases annual occupational employment statistics every March. For 2020, it calculated 58,580 computer-based occupations for the South Florida region — up 700 — out of a labor force of 2.5 million.
Mark Muro, Senior Fellow and Policy Director at the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program, has looked at separate, proprietary data and come up with the following conclusion:
“I think something is happening but it’s hard to quantify,” Muro said in an email.
His data show South Florida now ranks 278th out of 400 U.S. metros when it comes to advanced industry’s share of employment, and 88th when it comes to what Brookings calls “digital services industries.” That’s up slightly from 2015, when South Florida was 290th in advanced industry and 99th in digital services industries.
The notion that “something” is happening with Miami tech, Muro said, is further indicated by U.S.
Postal Service change-ofaddresses, which show, among other things, that there was a net-positive flow of 1,778 people from the Bay Area to Miami in 2020.
“That’s a suggestive number,” Muro said.
STARTUP SHOWDOWN NAMES TWO WINNERS
Atlanta-based Panormavic Venture Capital named two winners in its Miami Startup Showdown, held Thursday, Sept. 30. Defy Trends, a cryptocrurrency analytics company, and ID card software company Virtual Badge each took home $120,000.
MISFITS GAMING RAISES $35M FROM SCRIPPS
Misfits Gaming Group, South Florida’s largest e-sports and videogaming company, has received a $35 million investment from The E.W. Scripps Company to begin carrying MGG content on Scripps’ networks and platforms.
Best known for its national news outlets like Court TV and Newsy, Scripps said in a statement last week that it plans to host e-sportsbased programming on its other digital properties, with the possibility of also including them on its broadcast services.
“Scripps is thrilled to partner with Misfits Gaming Group to help build energy and interest around these highly skilled and high energy video-game competitions,” said Scripps Local Media President Brian Lawlor in a statement. “We are perfectly positioned, with our large Florida footprint, to leverage our linear stream and over-the-top distribution to carry all kinds of Misfits Gaming content, from player profiles and interviews to team and league news — all aimed at connecting our advertisers with their young audiences.”
AVENTURA-BASED CYTOVIA RAISES $45M
Aventura-based Cytovia Therapeutics, Inc. a biopharmaceutical company that engineers cells to develop cancer treatments, recently announced it had raised $45 million along with a newly formed China-focused joint venture, CytoLynx Therapeutics. The two entities will use the funds to advance multiple “NK” or natural killer white blood cell therapies through product development in China. Cytovia is also licensing CytoLynx to develop additional therapeutics in China for global commercialization.
Cytovia founder and CEO Daniel Teper said the therapies will be focused on liver cancer, also called hepatocellular carcinoma.
“We are excited to accelerate the global development of our ... programs for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma, a condition with significant unmet medical needs and a very large patient population in Asia, particularly in China, and establish a path to provide these therapies to the Chinese market,” Teper said in a statement.