New England is home to technology-enabled enterprises spanning high-growth industries, such as the life sciences, finance, advanced manufacturing, and information technology.
Increasingly, occupations within these fields call for specialized technology skills, such as AI, machine learning, cybersecurity, and more. However, many entry-level jobs also require core digital generalist knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs).
Employer-endorsed digital generalist KSAs include computer literacy and storytelling, as well as data collection, analysis, and visualization. Importantly, the acquisition of these in-demand KSAs represent entry points to growing career fields that offer family-sustaining wages.
In the last three years, the monthly number of unique job postings that include at least one digital generalist KSA has grown 40% across the region. In the last year, nearly 750,000 unique jobs were posted in New England. Employer demand for these jobs has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, falling to 137,000 postings for the month of June 2020, compared to the peak number of postings in July 2019 of 221,000.
This brief analyzes the demand for digital generalist skills by required education level and industry and offers insights into how this analysis can shape economic recovery and workforce development decisions in New England.
