Forbes Ranks Jacksonville 6th for Tech Jobs Nationwide

One of the more positive notes struck in regard to employment in Jacksonville is the  ranking given to Jacksonville by Forbes Magazine on its list of cities for tech jobs. Jacksonville was ranked at number 6, one of a select number of cities to make gains in the niche over the last decade. Forbes reported that the number of jobs went up 1.4 percent between 2009 and 2011. The jobs form part of an expected 2 percent increase in the city’s overall job growth in the next 12 months.

The reason for the boom in tech jobs has been attributed to the influx of large banking and insurance corporations into the area. Among the companies hiring heavily are health insurance company Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida, and Technisource, which is an information technology staffing agency. Many local tech employers have large data centers with the need for staff to run them, mainly in the network security and database software areas. There have been several start-ups in Jacksonville as well, including Coolcat, Inc. which offers a cloud backup service for corporations. The government is another major employer of . information technology workers. Other reasons that Jacksonville maybe a popular place for technology-related jobs include its relatively low cost of living and proximity to the University of Florida.

The cities that rank ahead of Jacksonville on the list include Seattle, Baltimore, Columbus, Raleigh, and Salt Lake City. Cities in the top ten that were outranked by include Washington DC, San Bernadino, and San Diego.