1,657 TECHNOLOGY JOBS LOST IN COLORADO FROM 2004 TO 2005

Colorado was hit hard by the technology industry meltdown in the last recession and is recovering more slowly than the rest of the nation, according to a report.

As a result, Colorado now ranks third in concentration of high-technology workers after leading the nation in the previous nine years in the annual Cyberstates report released today by the American Electronics Association, a Washington, D.C.-based technology industry trade organization.

Technology industry employment in Colorado fell in 2005 by 1,657 jobs, the second most of any state, even as such employment grew nationwide that year, the report said. Nationwide, technology employment continued to grow in 2006, but state data isn’t yet available.

“We are pleased to see the rebounding of the tech industry,” said association President William Archey. “Not only do these jobs make critical contributions to the U.S. economy, these also pay extremely well. The average tech industry wage is 86 percent more than the average” U.S. wage.

Most of the technology job losses in Colorado were concentrated in computer and related manufacturing and general technology manufacturing, said Jessica Wright, executive director of the association’s Mountain States Council, which includes Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.

Colorado’s technology job losses came from manufacturers moving production overseas in recent years, a trend that has continued even as the local economy has recovered, said David White, vice president of marketing for the Colorado Springs Economic Development Corp.

In Colorado Springs, about 8,000 technology workers lost jobs during the 2001-03 recession.

“We are not replacing tech jobs as quickly as other states have because we don’t have headquarters here that generate research and development jobs,” White said. “We need to invest and focus on creating companies and new technologies so we can keep up with other states.”

Colorado’s technology employment also has been hurt by acquisitions of some of its largest technology employers by companies that moved those jobs elsewhere, Wright said. Notable examples include Sun Microsystems’ acquiring Storage Technology and Oracle’s buying J.D. Edwards.

The state’s technology job losses last year allowed both Virginia and Massachusetts to pass Colorado in technology-worker concentration. Nearly 9 percent of Virginia workers have technology jobs, compared with 8.61 percent in Massachusetts and 8.58 percent in Colorado.

Since 2000, Colorado’s technology employment has declined by nearly 46,000, or 22.5 percent, the report said. That is the third-largest decline in the nation after Nebraska and Oklahoma, but Colorado still ranks 13th in technology employment with about 160,000 tech workers.

The continuing slump in Colorado has hurt tech workers in the pocketbook — the average technology worker made $2,160, or 2.6 percent, less in 2005 than he or she did in 2000. The $80,225 average was up 1.6 percent from 2004 and was 92.9 percent more than the state’s average wage.

The report included at least one ray of hope — the number of high-tech businesses in Colorado increased by 569, or 5.5 percent, from 2004 to 2005. The increase in number of technology businesses was the third-highest in the nation after Florida and Virginia.

Nationwide, tech industry employment grew by 150,000 jobs last year, or nearly twice the 87,400 technology jobs added during 2005. Much of last year’s growth came in the software, engineering and tech services sectors, which together added nearly 155,000 jobs.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0234 or wayneh@gazette.com

HIGH-TECH EMPLOYMENT CHANGES 2004-05

Top five

1. California +14,402

2. Florida +10,874

3. Texas +10,339

4. Virginia +7,658

5. North Carolina +7,645

Bottom five

48. Connecticut -833

49. Georgia -906

50. Oklahoma -1,050

51. Colorado -1,657

52. Kansas -1,989