SSTI Digest

Manufacturers in the U.S. have been facing workforce shortages despite nearly six years of recent job gains in the sector. Those gains and more have been wiped out by the Covid-19 pandemic, compounding the labor shortage problem for a sector that has often struggled to keep pace with the changing demands of technology. However, this exacerbated labor shortage shows that robots are not taking all the jobs, only increasing the level of tech skills workers need to do their jobs. A recent report from Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute identifies several of the challenges facing employers in overcoming the shortfall, including weaknesses in local apprenticeship and job skills training programs, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts to broaden the workforce. Despite decades of pressure from foreign producers and companies offshoring manufacturing jobs, the sector still plays an important role in the U.S. economy. For every $1 spent in manufacturing, another $2.74 is added to the total economy. According to the Deloitte report, leaving the current shortfall of roughly 500,000 jobs unfilled could result in a $1 trillion loss to the U.S. economy by 2030.…

The level of federal R&D funding within a state can have important implications for local innovation economies. As such, understanding the amount of federal R&D funding and which agencies provide that funding within a state can help regional innovation leaders in designing and implementing programs and policies. This edition of Useful Stats explores NSF’s recently updated data on federal R&D funding obligations in 2019 by state and agency. Increasing by $12.4 billion over 2018, federal R&D funding reached $138.2 billion in 2019. However, federal R&D spending in states varied widely as seen in the interactive map below. In 2019, the states that had the greatest levels of federal R&D funding were California ($19.2 billion), Maryland ($16.9 billion), Virginia ($8 billion), Massachusetts ($6.8 billion), and the District of Columbia ($6.2 billion). The states with the least amount of federal R&D funding were Vermont ($120 million), South Dakota ($88.9 million), Puerto Rico ($81.8 million), North Dakota ($73 million), and Wyoming ($67.7 million). The pie charts below the interactive map show the agency breakdown of the federal R&D…

Alabama is the latest state that is embracing innovation as a way to grow the state’s economy. On May 19, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed legislation that grew from two top priority measures of the Alabama Innovation Commission — proposals discussed between SSTI and commission members in a meeting earlier this year. House Bill (HB) 540 establishes the Alabama Innovation Corporation, a public-private partnership that will serve as a catalyst for the state’s growing innovation economy, and HB 609 creates the Innovate Alabama Matching Grant Program that will promote research and development in the state. Both measures were passed unanimously in the state’s recently concluded legislative session. The initiatives are funded through the Education Trust Fund Budget (enacted May 11), with the Alabama Innovation Corporation receiving $4 million in funding, and the Alabama Matching Grant Program appropriated $5 million. Last July, the governor announced by Executive Order 720 that she was establishing Alabama’s first statewide commission on entrepreneurship and innovation. The order created the 15-member Alabama Innovation Commission (also known as Innovate Alabama),…

An SSTI data analysis finds that in FY 2020, small businesses were less successful in obtaining Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) funding from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) — particularly from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) — than they were in FY 2019. NIH provides more funding to the SBIR/STTR program in total than the other participating civilian agency combined, and is also the top funder of the program within most states among the civilian agencies. As such — and with the approaching June 4 deadline for applications to the Federal And State Technology (FAST) Partnership Program — organizations dedicated to supporting technology startups and bolstering local innovation economies should consider how to better assist companies prepare and submit quality SBIR/STTR applications to NIH while designing outreach, education, technical assistance, mentorship, and other entrepreneurial support programs.

Recognizing the systemic barriers to economic opportunity faced by women of color, JPMorgan Chase (JPMC) has relaunched its AdvancingCities Challenge in 2021 with a new focus on directly supporting projects designed, led, and implemented by Black women and Latinas. Building on its experience investing in projects focused on supporting inclusive economies, and as part of the larger AdvancingCities strategy, JPMC is seeking collaborative solutions to challenge and disrupt the policies, programs, and institutional practices that have continued to thwart the equitable access to economic opportunities for Black women and Latinas. The AdvancingCities initiative was launched in 2018 with a $500 million dollar commitment over five years to “invest in solutions that bolster the long-term vitality of the world’s cities and the communities within them that have not benefited from economic growth.” Leveraging collaboration across industry, government, philanthropies, nonprofits, and other anchor institutions to dismantle systemic barriers to economic mobility, the 2021 Challenge will award three-year grants of up to $5 million each to approximately eight projects. …

When the full impact of the COVID-19 virus was just beginning to be realized in spring of 2020, small businesses across the country were faced with nearly insurmountable challenges and emergency orders, shutting down operations in many instances and choking off funding sources. Many in the technology-based economic development (TBED) community stepped in and pivoted their own organizations and plans to help others. We reached out to our SSTI members to hear about how they responded. While we can’t include all of the many success stories, below we feature a sampling of some of the stories that SSTI members shared regarding how they responded to help guide small businesses through the pandemic. And check back next week when we will share more from members who responded about their science and education pivots that helped the country navigate the pandemic. “When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, it disrupted every aspect of life, business, and society in the U.S., sending Americans into quarantine lockdown for weeks and generating anxiety and uncertainty about what the future held. This was particularly prevalent in the investment and capital markets, where traditional funding…

In a field once dominated by government agencies and incumbent organizations, the aerospace and defense (A&D) industry has experienced a rapid landscape change over the past decade as private companies and high-profile organizations launch commercial space programs and advance novel exploration and communications projects. These private companies present new competition to the traditional A&D industry. Increasingly, top talent in the United States has turned away from agencies like NASA and the Department of Defense and opted for what they perceive as more innovative and rewarding work at private companies, according to a new report from McKinsey. The report intends to help the traditional A&D industry attract and retain the premier talent that is often lost to private companies. Seizing the moment: Talent challenges and opportunities in aerospace and defense highlights the prevailing trends and headwinds in the A&D industry affecting talent retention and recruiting, such as an increased demand for technical solutions including cybersecurity, automation, and artificial intelligence; increased demand for top talent; misplaced perceptions about the nature…

The United States solar industry experienced a 6.7 percent drop in total employment during 2020, a reflection of the difficulties that the COVID-19 pandemic caused in some parts of the manufacturing and construction sectors. Despite these challenges, the 2020 National Solar Jobs Census, released by the Solar Energy Industries Association, notes that the industry installed a record level of solar equipment throughout 2020 while also reaching new highs in most measures of diversity. As the sector continues to grow, the Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office has issued two requests for information surrounding the solar industry. While the 231,474 employees within the solar industry marked the lowest total employment for the sector since 2015, the report finds that labor productivity within the U.S. solar industry dramatically increased in 2020, leading to the increase in total solar installations for the past year. This rise in productivity was due in part to the changes brought on by the pandemic, such as the shift from in-store to online sales that reduced salesperson labor and homeowners’ increased awareness of their home energy usage that led to an…

The April jobs report, released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on May 7, generated considerable attention due to the 266,000 jobs added being far less than anticipated. Contributing to this topline number are quite a few trends moving in different directions, including a severe decline in automotive manufacturing employment — likely driven by the global semiconductor shortage — increasing restaurant and R&D employment, and declines in part-time work. Ultimately, the April employment data suggest a far more complex portrait of the economy than what is being covered in many sources. Motor vehicle manufacturing in decline due to chip shortages Employment in motor vehicle manufacturing fell by 27,000 in April from March. The number of seasonally-adjusted employees in the sector is now 868,000 workers, which is well below the February 2020 level of 986,000. Employment in the sector has been stagnant in recent months, and the shortage of semiconductor chips appears to be a leading cause. In early April, GM and Ford announced plans to temporarily shut down production lines, possibly affecting the survey’s reference week (which includes the 12th of the…

As support for efforts to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) continue to ramp up at organizations in sectors across the country, policy-makers and program designers must carefully consider the dynamics underlying the persistent disparities faced by women, minorities, and persons with disability in obtaining education and employment in science and engineering (S&E). A recent NSF report begins to explore these dynamics, finding persistent disparities in S&E education and employment for women, minorities, and persons with disability. Education According to NSF, diversity in undergraduate and graduate enrollment has continued to increase over the last decade. However, not every minority group experienced increasing enrollment. Specifically, the share of Black or African American students enrolled in the nation’s colleges and universities decreased despite gains by other racial and ethnic groups. While the share of women enrolled in all academic programs has broadly increased across all racial and ethnicity groups, the report reveals that these gains were not spread evenly across S&E disciplines. Women lost representation in the bachelor…

Armed with new data and new methodology, researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis revisited earlier findings on the generational wealth gap and found that “millennials may not be as ‘lost’ as we once thought.” The researchers analyzed data to calculate an estimated life cycle of wealth, mapping out the general path that wealth accumulation tends to follow, with low levels among young families, accumulated savings as people age, and drawdowns in retirement. While older millennials (defined as those born in the 1980s) were still 11 percent below wealth expectations in 2019, the researchers said this represented “significant progress from a 40 percent deficit in 2016.” A note of pessimism was sounded from the authors who found that despite the gains among older millennials’ median wealth, with the oldest among them entering their 40s, “there is less time to catch up and take advantage of wealth-building avenues.” That cohort also shoulders “more debt as a share of income than we would have expected,” the authors said. They also caution that these findings do not capture the effects of the COVID-19 recession, which could mean more difficulties for millennials,…

According to Governing, if 2020 was the year of the governor, 2021 is shaping up to be its end, as lawmakers across the country begin to curtail the sweeping powers of their state executives, following a pandemic and concurrent economic shutdown that led governors to flex their authority in historic new ways. The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) reports that governors in at least 40 states are facing legislation aimed at limiting their emergency powers; since March 2020, 10 bills in eight states have been signed into law that are aimed at increasing legislative oversight of governors’ emergency powers. These new laws were enacted in Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Kentucky, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Utah. Last month, governors in Idaho, Indiana, and Montana  all faced measures limiting their powers,all of which were vetoed, with only Idaho Gov. Brad Little appearing to be successful in fending off the challenge, while Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb is suing his state’s legislators over a new measure that gives them more authority to intervene when the state’s chief executive declares an emergency. Bucking the trend, Wyoming legislators…