High-tech employment enjoying healthy growth

If you are looking for a high-tech job, California is your best bet. At least that seems to be the conclusion of the American Electronics Association’s 10th anniversary Cyberstates study of high-tech industry employment. The report shows that in 2006, the high-tech industry continued growing, adding nearly 150,000 jobs for a total of 5.8 million in the United States. This growth is faster than the 87,400 jobs added in 2005. These two years of growth represent an increase of four percent, the AeA stated. The Cyberstates report is based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data, which is collected from all businesses in the United States as required by law for the state unemployment insurance program. The biggest surprise in compiling the national report was that the unemployment rate for engineers was under two percent, a sign Americans aren’t losing technology jobs, said William Archey, CEO of the AeA, a high-tech trade association representing 2,500 companies. Despite all the alarm about outsourcing jobs, the high-technology industry is growing in the United States, Archey said. But that doesn’t mean the U.S. can sit back and relax. The U.S. has a shortage of graduates with math and science degrees and can’t meet the need of U.S. companies, Archey said. Those companies also can’t attract foreign nationals because of visa issues, he said in a statement. Still, the AeA and other tech executives are urging Congress to make it easier for U.S. companies to hire highly skilled foreign workers under the H-1B visa system. Earlier this month, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services reached its 65,000 limit for 2008 H-1B petitions in a single day and would not accept any more, to the dismay of tech companies. As for the hottest job market states, California added 14,400 tech jobs and employed 919,300 tech workers, more than double No. 2 Texas and more than triple No. 3 New York in 2006. California’s tech workers were the highest paid nationwide, averaging $95,300 — 109% above the state’s average private sector wage. Virginia surpassed Colorado as the state with the highest concentration of tech workers as a percentage of the private sector workforce. Nationwide, the average technology worker earns $75,500. That’s short of the $78,691 average income in 2000, the peak of the dot-com boom. But it’s 86% more than the average private sector wage of $40,500, the AeA said. The strongest subcategory of technology in the AeA report was software, which employed more than 1.5 million people and created 88,500 new jobs last year.