Indiana has a reputation for manufacturing, warehousing and farming, but a study found it actually has a high number of jobs in high-tech fields.
The state ranked fourth nationally for its amount of employment in advanced industries that include automotive and aerospace manufacturing, energy, computer system design, telecommunications and software development, according to the Brookings Institution. The Washington, D.C.-based think tank says industries that employ a lot of workers in research and development and science, technology, engineering and math — or STEM — will be critical to future prosperity in the 21st century, both nationally and regionally.
The study found 344,400 Indiana residents — 11.4 percent — work in advanced industries such as life sciences. Only seven states in the country have more than 10 percent of workers in advanced fields.
“Our research makes clear that Indiana is no longer just a manufacturing province; the state’s metropolitan economies are increasingly diversified, with material, digital and genomic specializations all at once,” said Senior Fellow Mark Muro, the lead researcher.
Roughly 65 percent of new jobs created since the Great Recession are in industries that invest in research and development. The average worker in such industries earns an average of $90,000 a year, more than twice as much as average workers in other sectors, according to the Brookings Institution.
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