Software Industry Has $1 Trillion Economic Impact In US (cnet.com)

An anonymous reader writes from a report via CNET: A report from software trade organization BSA The Software Alliance shows that the software industry is driving economics gains across the country. The software industry had a $1.07 trillion impact on U.S. gross domestic product in 2014, according to the report. It's being driven by 2.5 million jobs directly related to the software industry, with an additional 7.3 million positions for people in real estate, professional services and other fields the industry supports. California surpassed all other states with 408,143 software jobs that contributed roughly $90.53 billion to the GDP. New York came in second with 147,361 software jobs contributing $37.16 billion. Texas came in third with 200,000 jobs adding about $30 billion. Alaska came in last place with 1,325 software jobs contributing $248 million to the GDP.

Comments

Microsoft wants a subsidy?

[Anonymous Coward]

BSA is just a front for Microsoft, so what are they lobbying for? I'm guessing its a subsidy and some protection when their desktop market collapses under the oncoming storm of ARM desktops.

Isn't BSA the License Police?

[93 Escort Wagon]

Are they setting the stage to go before Congress and ask permission to impose the death penalty on license scofflaws?

For comparison

[Okian Warrior]

For comparison, the total GDP of the country is a little under $17 trillion.

Labor force participation is low, the levels it was in the 1970s. There's a recent uptick in jobs, but the graph is notoriously noisy, and it'll be at least 6 months to a year before we can tell whether this is a trend.

GDP per capita (amount of GDP per person) has about doubled since 1995. Quadrupled since 1970.

Despite these gains, household income has dropped by about 8% in the last 10 years.

So in summary, since 1995 (ish) we doubled our GDP (both per person and in absolute terms), and household income right now is about the level it was at the start of the doubling.

Oh, and everyone who works still has to put in 40hrs/week.

Re:For comparison

[geekmux]

...Despite these gains, household income has dropped by about 8% in the last 10 years. So in summary, since 1995 (ish) we doubled our GDP (both per person and in absolute terms), and household income right now is about the level it was at the start of the doubling...

Translation: The rich got richer. A LOT richer.

If anyone was looking to try and find out exactly when the "great divide" happened that started to establish the financial powerhouse that makes up the 1% today, there ya go.

And the future is painted quite clear as that chasm between the 99% and the 1% continues to grow, and billionaires turn into trillionaires by replacing the middle class with automation to maximize throughput while minimizing all those costs related to employing humans. In a weird twist of irony, it will be the software industry that ushers this era in. We've heard of H1-B visas being used to force IT workers to train their replacements. I often wonder if the AI developer realizes they're doing the same thing.

Re:For comparison

[ranton]

We've heard of H1-B visas being used to force IT workers to train their replacements. I often wonder if the AI developer realizes they're doing the same thing.

Its not just AI developers who do this, it is almost all software developers. In fact you are talking about anyone in an R&D-like field.

When I worked in the pharmaceutical industry my job was to help hospitals and pharmacies hire more pharmacy techs instead of pharmacists. When I worked in consulting I worked in many industries but my primary goal was to help companies solve immediate software needs without having to hire too much staff. Now that I work with CRM related software, I am responsible for helping my company only increase its staff by 10% while its revenue grows by 100%. The end result is that as we eat market share from other companies, the jobs lost in those companies are not added to mine.

I don't believe our economy is a zero sum game, but software is changing so rapidly there is no way for job growth in other sectors to keep up. Right now I complete a major project every quarter, and each time it increases the workload my coworkers can handle each week. For instance over the past two years our customer service department can handle over double the cases per staff member, and that doesn't even include new self-service options.

And everything we have seen over the past few decades is nothing compared to when natural language processing and image recognition reach or surpass human-level capabilities. This could easily be in the next 10 years, and then the service industry sees a disruption not seen since the green revolution. Except this time it will happen over 5 years instead of 50.

BSA = Software Industry Lobbyists

[nateman1352]

I suspect that the $1 trillion number the BSA came up with is a generous estimation that gives excessive weight to all the secondary sectors that the software industry supports. Just because construction firms purchase a bunch of trucks doesn't mean that construction jobs get counted as part of "the auto industry's impact on GDP." The only thing that counts towards GDP is the revenue generated by the sales of those trucks (worker wages DO NOT count as part of GDP unless they are government workers), same principle should apply to the software industry.

Just a bunch of rhetoric to talk up Congress about why its so important that they pass a bunch of new IP laws to protect the US economy.

Re:Lawyers also add many billions to the GDP

[Guy Harris]

Every time there is a patent case, the GDP goes up.

And don't forget those people running around throwing stones at windows - look at all the jobs they're giving to glaziers!

(Yes, I know, that's exactly what you're saying here....)