[extropy-chat] Study Details Three Year U.S. High-Tech Job Bust

[BillK]

<http://www.washtech.org/news/industry/display.php?ID_Content=4685>

High-Tech Cities See No Job Growth, High Unemployment

Seattle, Wash--- A new report by the Center for Urban Economic
Development at the University of Illinois, Chicago, shows that U.S.
high-technology workers are still facing chronic unemployment and a
serious jobs deficit despite an economic recovery being declared three
years ago.

The report, entitled "America's High-Tech Bust," found that the U.S.
high-tech economy continued to lose a whopping 200,000 jobs after the
recession was declared over in November 2001 by the National Bureau of
Economic Research.

Full report:
<http://www.washtech.org/reports/AmericasHighTechBust/AmericasHighTechBust.pdf>

The employment situation is particularly bleak in the San Francisco
PMSA, which witnessed a 49% job loss between March 2001 and April 2004
and a 25% job loss post-November 2001
Significant post-recession job losses also occurred in other regions
with a large IT industry presence. San Jose and Boston lost 14,000 and
12,200 jobs, respectively between the official end of the recession in
November 2001 and April 2004. Chicago and Dallas each lost about
10,000 jobs during this period, and Seattle has lost 6,300 IT industry
jobs since the beginning of the recession and 1,700 jobs
post-recession. Washington, D.C. is the only metropolitan area in the
dataset, which despite losing 8,300 jobs during the recession, added
4,100 new jobs after the end of the recession.

While there is a lack of current and reliable information on the
extent of job losses due to offshore outsourcing, there is little
doubt that it has contributed to soaring unemployment rates in the
industry. For instance, UIC-CUED analysis of the Current Population
Survey reveals that national unemployment rates for computer
programmers was 6.7% in 2003, two years after the end of the
recession, compared to 2.5% in 2001. Incidentally, computer
programming is also one of the top occupations sent offshore (ITAA,
2003).

Marcus Courtney, president of WashTech, noted that only a few years
ago, the high-tech economy in the U.S. was the most dynamic sector and
touted as the new economy that was going to be the backbone of job
creation for the future as the nation moved away from its
manufacturing roots. "It is stunning to think that in every region of
the country, we have fewer high-tech jobs today than we did three
years ago. We must focus on exporting our products instead of our jobs
to turn this critical situation around."

BillK