Published Nov 24, 2020 by A.J. Mistretta
Houston, long a hub for engineering talent, has been working in recent years to develop its tech workforce. Collective employment in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields totals nearly 80,000 in the City of Houston, which is also one of the most diverse STEM workforces in the country, according to a new report.
Financial tech company SmartAsset’s latest list of the top U.S. cities for diversity in STEM ranks Houston No. 7 ahead of Dallas and Los Angeles.
U.S. STEM employment has grown by nearly 80% over the past 30 years, according to data from Pew Research Center. But the sector continues to lack diversity on the whole, with Blacks and Hispanics accounting for just 16% of the STEM workforce nationwide.
SmartAsset takes a closer look at racial and gender breakdowns of workers in the 35 cities with the largest STEM workforces to compile its annual report. The 2020 report found that white men still fill the majority of U.S. STEM jobs. But cities such as Houston are making inroads toward diversification.
Metro Houston has a STEM workforce of roughly 300,000 and about 80,000 STEM jobs are located within the City of Houston itself. While just 30% of the city’s STEM workers are women, Houston has the third-best race/ethnicity index score in the study: nearly 20% of STEM workers are Hispanic/Latino, while another 20% are Asian and more than 8% are Black.
To find the best cities for diversity in STEM, SmartAsset analyzed data for the 35 cities in the county with the largest STEM workforces, looking at both racial and gender diversity. Those two indexes were averaged to create the final score used to rank the cities. Data for both metrics came from the Census Bureau’s 2019 American Community Survey.
See the latest employment data for the Houston region and learn more about STEM talent.