The Cloud Is Raining Jobs in Southern California — 53,000 of Them

This post is authored by General Manager Enterprise and Partners Group, Southwest District, Tyler Bryson.

While businesses in L.A. are well aware of the cost savings that cloud computing can bring, it may be surprising to learn that the cloud also is creating substantial new revenues for local companies and is expected to create tens of thousands of new jobs across the Southland.

Of course, some companies here are reducing their IT expenses by shifting their information technology infrastructure and applications to cloud-based services. Instead of spending IT dollars on buying more servers, constantly upgrading software and handling other routine chores, we can rely on the cloud to keep all our backroom technology in good shape and up to date for us.

A new study from Microsoft, however, reveals that the top line of our financial statements is growing as well. The study, conducted by IDC research, finds that freeing IT people from day-to-day manual upkeep gives them a lot more time to work on innovative projects that help the entire company run more efficiently. This innovation in turn leads to the generation of more revenues. In fact, the study reports that this growing opportunity for innovation enabled by the cloud is likely to produce revenue increases totaling $1.1 trillion annually by 2015 for businesses around the world. Furthermore, the study predicts that businesses will use this new revenue to create new jobs—nearly 14 million of them globally through 2015.

In the Los Angeles area, the study predicts that the cloud will be responsible for having created more than 31,700 local jobs by the end of this year and 53,000 cumulative new jobs by the end of 2015. That’s enough Angelenos to nearly fill Dodger Stadium. Instead of creating traffic jams, these new employees will be creating innovations, with their jobs expected to be split evenly between large enterprises and smaller businesses, both globally and here in L.A. Our region is especially well positioned for big job gains from the cloud because of our highly diverse economy, reaching across aerospace, entertainment, tourism, finance and international trade.

We might have thought that with the cloud tending so much of our technology we’d see a dip in employment in our IT departments; it turns out that one of the cloud’s most important contributions to our business operations is giving creative, efficiency-focused minds the time they need to work innovatively. In this way, the cloud becomes a foundation for helping to grow the entire organization.

As a result, new cloud-generated jobs are being distributed all across the enterprise. Companies that spend the dollars that become available from cloud-computing efficiencies are hiring people in sales, finance, production, marketing, and other units. These departments become more innovative with support from the cloud and sustain the generations of additional revenue.

To learn more about Microsoft’s predictions for the cloud’s impact on jobs, check out the full study and additional resources on the Microsoft News Center. The cloud clearly is helping to restore our economic health here in L.A. and all over the world.