A Snapshot of Our Local Economy
Well here we are, officially through the first month of the new decade and BRIDGE is working to provide you with the latest news, events, and information about technology in our community. This month we focused on the economy and decided to take a deeper look into what’s out there for job seekers in the area. According to a recent news cast from NBC 10 our unemployment rate has risen to 12.9% in December, ranking us third in the country behind Michigan and Nevada. Although this rate has risen from the previous statistic, experts suggest that number could be leveling off. Could Rhode Island’s struggling economy be saved by technology? This same newscast interviews a new technology start up company setting up shop in Providence and the organization Betaspring’s part in helping bring this and other technology start ups to Rhode Island. This isn’t the first we’ve heard of technology turning around the economy in RI. In a New York Times article published last year, Jack Templin, founder of Providence Geeks, suggested technology could shape a new economy for RI. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Betaspring, they are a Providence based company that works with teams of entrepreneurs to help them turn their ideas into businesses. The organization was founded by Allan Tear, Owen Johnson, and Jack Templin and recently received a $366K grant to expand their efforts. Each team in the Betaspring program goes through a 12 week bootcamp to learn how to turn their ideas into viable business plans.
So what’s out there for technology job seekers in and around RI right now? We did a search within 30 miles of Providence to see what openings are available and what technologies are being used by companies in our area. Out of over 500 job postings we found there was a need for Developers the most (26%), with Infrastructure (21%), Business Analysts (16%), and Project Managers (15%) close behind with QA and Misc making up the remaining percentage. Under the development umbrella we saw C# and PHP as the most common, along with postings that listed Java, HTML, XML, Drupal, CSS, and VB.Net skills. Take our survey at the bottom and let us know what you think of the local economy.
*Note some positions may be duplicates due to multiple staffing agencies working on the same job for a client
Misc Includes: Security, Technical Writers, PeopleSoft, EDI, Risk, Audit, VMWare, Stoarage
Take our Survey Here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PB3DNZL
References:
http://www.pbn.com/detail/47426.html
http://www.projo.com/news/content/KNOWLEDGE_ECONOMY_11-06-09_FGGBV92_v15.3460f4c.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/us/01rhode.html
http://www2.turnto10.com/jar/news/local/article/ri_unemployment_rate_rises_to_12.9_percent/30093/