Alex Heath • Blog

Apple Has Helped Create 466,000 U.S. Jobs Since 2008

Apple recently announced that it has payed over $4 billion to third-party developers since the launch of the App Store on July 10, 2008. Apps are an essential part of the modern smartphone, and Apple continues to pave the way with the growing success of the App Store year after year.

Sparked by Apple’s initiative, 466,000 U.S jobs have been created through what is now called the “App Economy.” Jobs include those that now develop for other platforms, like Android and Windows Phone.

According to a report published by TechNet, the growing App Economy has created nearly a half million jobs in the United States alone over a period of 4 years. Unsurprisingly, nearly 30% of these jobs have been created in California. New York holds second place with 6.9%.

TechNet’s study takes into consideration the technical and non-technical jobs related to app development, such as the thousands of employees that work at large firms like Zynga.

Nothing illustrates the job-creating power of innovation better than the App Economy. The incredibly rapid rise of smartphones, tablets, and social media, and the applications—“apps”—that run on them, is perhaps the biggest economic and technological phenomenon today. Almost a million apps have been created for the iPhone, iPad and Android alone, greatly augmenting the usefulness of mobile devices. Want to play games, track your workouts, write music? There are a plethora of apps to choose from, many of them free.

On an economic level, each app represents jobs— for programmers, for user interface designers, for marketers, for managers, for support staff.

The term “app” didn’t exist before the iPhone, so Apple is be thanked for the healthy, growing economy that has been built up around app development. TechNet considers the “key” platforms for app development to be iOS, Android, Blackberry, Facebook and Windows Phone. Apple’s App Store has the largest number of apps by far, with 529,550 active apps as of December 12, 2011 with 124,475 active publishers.

How much is the App Economy worth? Try $20 billion in revenue for 2011. Companies are eagerly looking for app developers. The number of employment ads containing the word “app” in 2011 was 45% higher than the year before. Looks like “app” is the new gold.

If you want to read TechNet’s full report, you can do so by viewing this PDF.