Brookings Names Top 15 Advanced Manufacturing Hotbeds, San Jose Tops List

The San Jose, Calif., area was named the top advanced manufacturing hub in the U.S. for its deep engagement with research and development and STEM workers to drive the city’s economic growth, according to a recent Brookings Institute report listing the top 15 metropolitan areas for advance industries.

Earlier this year, another Brookings report listed Little Rock at 78th out of 100 in the number of advanced industry jobs and economic output. According to the study, there were nearly 24,000 advanced manufacturing jobs in the Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway MSA that created annual output of $5.9 billion. An additional 19,130 indirect jobs in the area were support by advance industries, which produce 6.7% of the region’s jobs.

The Memphis MSA, which includes parts of Northeast Arkansas, finished just ahead of Little Rock at 64th, producing 31,660 advanced manufacturing jobs. However, the economic output from the Memphis area was slightly behind the Little Rock area at $5.3 billion.

In the poll of the top 15 hottest advanced manufacturing cities, San Jose beat out Seattle for the top post, while Wichita, Kan., Detroit and San Francisco rounded out the top five. The rest of the top ten included Washington, D.C., Palm Bay, Fla., Boston, Houston and San Diego.

Utah has three cities in the final fifteen with Provo (12th), Ogden (14th) and Salt Lake City (15th). Austin, Texas and Raleigh, N.C., also made the list of urban clusters pushing the advanced manufacturing frontier at 11th and 13th, respectively.

According to Brookings, the advanced industries sector directly employs 12.2 million Americans and, factoring in both direct and indirect employment, supports over one-quarter of all U.S. jobs. In 2013, the average advanced industry worker earned $90,000 in total compensation, nearly twice as much as the average worker in other industries and these wages have been rising.

Even workers with lower levels of education benefit from this wage premium, the report said. For example, advanced industries workers with only an associate’s degree earn more than four-year college graduates working in other industries.

”Advanced industries power our national and regional economies, but their preeminence is in no way assured—and in fact it’s challenged,” said Muro, Brookings senior fellow and director of policy at the Metropolitan Policy Program. “If we want to reclaim broadly shared opportunity in the United States we are going to need to shore up the global competitiveness of our advanced industries.”

Characterized by its deep involvement with technology research and development (R&D) and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) workers, the sector encompasses 50 industries ranging from manufacturing industries such as automaking and aerospace to energy industries such as oil and gas extraction to high-tech services such as computer software and computer system design, including for health applications.

The Brookings report calls for concerted action on the part of private, public and civic sector leaders to expand the nation’s advanced industries. Especially important, given federal gridlock, will be creative problem-solving on the part of private- and public sector leaders at the state and regional level, the report recommends.

Among other initiatives, the nation’s private- and public-sectors should work together to:

• Commit to innovation by increasing R&D in more open or networked innovation models and creating a lasting source of advantage for firms and places.
• Recharge the skills pipeline by developing industry-led, sector-specific regional skills initiatives to increase the availability of the skilled workers that regional firms need.
• Embrace the ecosystem by investing in anchor institutions and cluster infrastructure to strengthen the regional industrial communities where innovation and skills can develop.

“America’s advanced industries are going to be critical to restoring broad-based prosperity in U.S. regions and in the nation,” said Muro. “We should work hard and in new ways to enlarge them and increase their vitality.

In March, Arkansas Manufacturing Solutions held the first-of-its-kind Manufacturing Innovation Summit in North Little Rock. The goal of the summit was to bring together companies across the state that are involved in next-generation manufacturing processes.

Discussions at the summit also focused on ways manufacturing companies in Arkansas could embrace innovation, while also generating revenue and jobs, increasing productivity, improving quality, and adding to those businesses’ bottom line.