Half of New York’s Tech Workers Lack College Degrees, Report Says
Tech companies in the city employ about 140,000 people and as many as 150,000 others have tech jobs in other companies, the report estimates. About 44 percent of those jobs do not require a college degree, but on average, they pay about 45 percent more than the typical hourly wage in the city, according to the report.
Mr. Rasiej said that premium was partly because tech jobs paid better and partly because technology companies tended to pay more than companies in some other big industries in the city, such as health care and retailing.
Many of the tech jobs are with large banks and media companies that have relatively high pay scales.
Many of the most lucrative opportunities are in programming, a field where demand for talent outstrips the current supply, said Avi Flombaum, the dean of the Flatiron School, which trains people in software coding.
Mr. Flombaum, who dropped out of college several years ago to create programming for a hedge fund, said all but two of the 126 graduates of his 12-week course have found work. Their average starting pay, he said, was $82,000.
Some of the students at the Flatiron School did not attend or finish college and others are older adults looking to switch careers, Mr. Flombaum said. “There are more programming jobs than there are programmers right now,” he said.