A new study says the health care and bioscience industry had a $40 billion dollar economic impact on San Antonio last year and employed one out of every six workers in the city.
According to a study released Tuesday by the Chamber of Commerce, the average healthcare and bioscience salary is nearly $54,000, 10 percent higher than the overall average San Antonio salary.
Richard Butler, professor emeritus of economics at Trinity University, said having a thriving medical sector attracts top-notch talent to the city and offers young people a reason to stay.
"Not that long ago, that was a common complaint of San Antonio parents — that their kids would go to college and never come back because they couldn't find a job. And we've changed that narrative,” Butler said, “there are jobs that pay very well here."
Butler worked on this study with Mary Stefl, professor of health care administration at Trinity, and said people who get into the field not only do well, “they do good.”
"They are people making a contribution and feeling that they have made a difference in people's lives,” she said. “That’s one of the things that always resonated with me as an educator of of people going into this field.”
She added, “They wouldn’t go into the field. It’s too tough a field to go into unless you really want to make a difference in people’s lives. And you can.”
The study says medicine and bioscience have added more than 50,000 net new jobs to the city's economy over the last 10 years.
Bonnie Petrie can be reached at bonnie@tpr.org or on Twitter @kbonniepetrie
