What are the good-paying STEM jobs in Lancaster County?
But the executive director of the nine-year-old Lancaster County STEM Alliance said the federal definition does not include the well-paying jobs here that require technical knowledge and demand innovation but don't require a college or advanced degree.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Statistics, Lancaster County has a concentration of STEM jobs .57 times the national average. That's called a location quotient. A location quotient less than 1 means that the occupation's share of employment in the area is less than its share of employment in the nation as a whole. According to the federal report, there are about 9,420 STEM jobs in Lancaster County, which is 3.8% of all jobs.
The Alliance believes there are many more.
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"To us, STEM includes any jobs that require critical thinking from certification to Ph.D. level," said Lauren Beal, executive director of the Alliance, which works to align schools and businesses for education. The Alliance reports that 71% of 102,000 Lancaster County students who have been involved with its programs since 2015 have learned skills in coding, math and science.
The federal definition of a STEM job does not include any medical professions, and Beal said the Alliance counts those kinds of jobs. Healthcare is a top employment sector in the county, accounting for about 18.2% of its workforce. This summer the Alliance held a healthcare exploration for jobs such as phlebotomist and x-ray technician, which aren't counted in the federal report. The county has a high concentration of some healthcare jobs, all of which need critical thinking and technical knowledge, such as nurse midwife at 2.7 times the national rate, and audiologists, which are concentrated in the county at a 2.04 times the national average.
Good jobs in Lancaster
The federal report counts employment 104 different occupations from computer analysts to post secondary school science teachers.
Some STEM jobs in the report do have high concentrations in the county :
Chemical technicians are 2.67 times greater here than the national average (annual pay $42,790) Food scientists and technologists are 2.11 times greater than the national average (annual pay $97,640) Mechanical engineering technologists and technicians are 2.12 greater than national average (annual pay of $62,870)Pay for STEM jobs in Lancaster County also falls at the bottom of the state, according to the report, which is based on data from May 2023. Philadelphia had the highest median STEM pay at $102,650 annually. The median pay in Lancaster was $77,990 a year. Only jobs in Johnstown, Williamsport, Altoona and Lebanon paid less.
In Pennsylvania, top STEM jobs are concentrated in State College at 1.61 times greater than the national average. Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are close to the national average at .97 and .99 respectively.
"The data doesn't freak me out," Beal said. noting the federal report counts different jobs than the Alliance. "The reason why we are here is to keep these conversations going. If we don't have STEM jobs it impacts the economics of the entire community."
