Oregon Among Top States in the App Economy

Have you ever played Words with Friends or Angry Birds? These smartphone apps are fun games, but they're also products of what's being called the "app economy." A new report from South Mountain Economics entitled "The Geography of the App Economy" finds that Oregon is among the states with the most app economy jobs.

The Conference Board produces data with help-wanted on-line (HWOL) job ads by geography and occupation. South Mountain Economics found HWOL ads in each state that contained key phrases such as "mobile apps" and "Windows Mobile", among others. They validated which ads actually referred to the app economy, then estimated the number of app economy jobs for each state. In April 2012, Oregon ranked 12th among all states with an estimated total of 10,800 app economy jobs. Our west coast neighbors took the first and second spots: California had 151,900 app economy jobs, while Washington had 49,800.

The report also examined app intensity, the ratio of app economy jobs to total jobs in a state. In this respect, Oregon ranked 4th among all states, with an app intensity of 1.70.

More information, including the full methodology of the study, is available in the complete report.