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Cyberstates 2010 — Executive Summary

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TechAmerica Foundation proudly presents this 13th annual edition of Cyberstates, which examines the size and scope of the high-tech industry in terms of jobs, wages, and other factors nationally and in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

The U.S. high-tech industry lost 245,600 jobs in 2009, for a total of 5.9 million workers. This four percent decline in tech employment is slightly less than the five percent decline experienced by the private sector as a whole.  This recession-induced decline in 2009 follows four years of steady growth in tech industry employment.

Every high-tech sector saw employment losses in 2009. Of the 245,600 jobs lost, 112,600 were in manufacturing. Engineering and tech services saw a net loss of 59,000 jobs, as did communications services, shedding 53,000 jobs. Software services experienced the smallest decline, losing 20,700 jobs, or one percent.

Cyberstates 2010 relies on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The report provides 2009 national data on tech employment as well as 2008 national and state-by-state data on high-tech employment, wages, establishments, payroll, wage differential, and employment concentration. All data are the most recent available at the time of publication.

Despite being in the midst of a recession, 41 cyberstates added tech jobs in 2008. The largest gains occurred in California (+15,800), Texas (+14,600), Washington (+9,300), Massachusetts (+6,300), and Virginia (+5,700). On a percentage basis, Delaware saw the fastest job growth in 2008 at 12.8 percent.

For the fourth straight year, Virginia led the nation with the highest concentration of tech workers — 95 of every 1,000 private sector workers in the state were employed in the tech industry. Virginia was followed by Massachusetts and Colorado.

The high-tech industry pays its workers well — 86 percent more than the average private sector wage nationwide. Forty-seven cyberstates had wage differentials higher than 50 percent and five had differentials higher than 100 percent. While we weathered the storm better than the private sector at large, the U.S. high-tech industry clearly felt the effects of the recession in 2009. Every corner of the industry experienced job losses, though software services, which helped tech hold up longer than most at the recession’s onset, has continued to bolster the industry.

Without decisive action, policymakers in Washington might not see the recovery that we are hoping for. We see the benefit of focused technology policies in the federal marketplace where private companies and their employees are hard at work answering some of the greatest challenges of our time. The technology industry could benefit from a comprehensive innovation agenda that encourages competitive tax policy, broadband deployment, and the creation of more well-paying tech jobs across across the country to help put America’s brightest minds to work.

Christopher W. Hansen President TechAmerica Foundation		Phillip J. Bond Chairman TechAmerica Foundation

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