California Business Minute™

Hi, I am Tim Johnson and welcome to the California Business Minute.

According to a new report, the U.S. high-tech industry lost 115,800 net jobs in
2010, for a total of 5.75 million workers.  This two percent decline in tech
industry employment was less than half of the 249,500 jobs lost in 2009, which
followed several years of sustained growth.  Over the longer term of 2007 to
2010 – the span of the economic downturn – the tech industry fared better then
the private sector as a whole, with a four percent decline in employment versus
a seven percent decline in the private sector.

Cyberstates 2010, the 14th annual report by TechAmerica details national and
state trends in high-tech employment, wages, and other key economic factors.

Key National Findings
(National employment data is for 2010; national wage data is for 2010)

• U.S. high-tech employment totaled 5.75 million in 2010
• Tech employment was down in 2010 by 115,800, or by 2.0 percent
• High-tech manufacturing employment fell by 4.2 percent, losing 53,600
  jobs between 2009 and 2010
• All nine tech manufacturing sectors lost jobs between 2009 and 2010
• The communications services sector lost 72,100 jobs in 2010, or
  5.5 percent
• The software services sector added 22,800 jobs in 2010, a 1.4 percent
  increase
• The engineering and tech services sector lost 12,900 jobs in 2010, a
  0.8 percent decline
• The following key occupation categories: engineering managers, computer
  hardware engineers, database administrators, and aerospace engineers, all
  managed to keep unemployment below five percent
• The tech industry paid an annual average wage of $86,800 in 2010, 93 percent 
  more than the average private sector wage of $45,000

Key State Findings
• The leading states by high-tech employment in 2010 were California
  (931,000), Texas (456,500), New York (294,700), Virginia (277,600), and
  Florida (267,500).
• Michigan led the nation in net tech job creation in 2010, adding 2,700 jobs.
  The next largest gains occurred in the District of Columbia (+1,400), West
  Virginia (+400), Utah (+400), and South Carolina (+300).
• For the sixth straight year, Virginia led the nation in concentration of
  high-tech workers in 2010, with 98 high-tech workers per 1,000 private sector
  workers.
• Forty-nine cyberstates have annual average high-tech wages that are more than
  50 percent higher than the average private sector wage in their respective
  state, and seven cyberstates have wages that are 100 percent higher.

I am Tim Johnson and this has been the California Business Minute.