High-tech job hemorrhage not stanched, but slowing next year

San Francisco Business Times ^ | 12/1/2003 | Kent Hoover

[Willie Green]

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.

America's high-tech industry lost 540,000 jobs in 2002, with employment dropping to 6 million, according to a study by AeA, the nation's largest high-tech trade association.

But AeA projects high-tech job losses will slow to 234,000 this year.

Electronics manufacturing accounted for more than half of the high-tech jobs lost last year. But for the first time in the seven years that AeA has prepared its Cyberstates report, the software industry declined instead of grew -- cutting 150,000 jobs last year.

All but three states -- the District of Columbia, Wyoming and Montana -- lost tech jobs last year. California showed the biggest decline -- a loss of 123,000 jobs, followed by Texas at 61,000.

High-tech exports fell 12 percent to $166 billion. The only sector to increase their exports was electromedical equipment manufacturing. High-tech venture capital investments dropped 52 percent to $13 billion.

"These declines have caused us to pause about two important issues," said AeA President and CEO William Archey. "We are aware of current budget restraints, but now is not the time to cut back on education, particularly in math and science. We need a world-class work force to deal with world-class challenges.

85 million lacked coverage

A new analysis by The Commonwealh Fund found that 85 million Americans lacked health insurance at some point between 1996 and 1999 -- more than double the number of uninsured Americans reported in any one of those years by the Census Bureau.

The reason for the higher number is that millions of Americans slipped in and out of coverage, according to the private research foundation.

"Insurance churning disrupts and undermines efforts to provide timely medical care, and likely raises public and private health insurance costs due to frequent cycling on and off coverage," said Commonwealth Fund Vice President Cathy Schoen.

More than half of the families with adults who were fully employed during this four-year period went without health insurance at some point.

The foundation said the study highlights the need for extending eligibility for Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program, new policies that blend public and private coverage for those with unstable sources of private coverage.

Kent Hoover is Washington bureau chief.
Reach him at khoover@bizjournals.com.

[Willie Green]

Bush's Brother Has Contract to Help Chinese Chip Maker
Bush's brother has US$400,000 contract with Chinese firm

[harpseal]

Ping

On or off let me know

[waterstraat]

This is not good(losing high tech jobs to communist china and socialist India). I dont think either country cares about our Bill of Rights, and they will become the worlds superpowers if this continues.

[riri]

A friend of a family member just took a job with a consulting firm that works mainly with aviation and satellite tech. He is not an engineer but works more in the financial end. He said the entire engineering department is made up of muslims (not Indians) here on H1B's or whatever visa they came in on. They are supposedly all named Mohammed and all they do is bit*h about our country.

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

So, when Bush enacts steel tarrifs, he's your hero. But when technology firms in an ostensibly free country do something to lower the costs of their product, it has something to do with his brother? Next we'll find out that Jeb is shorting stock in some Mississippi shrimp company.

[Alouette]

We need a world-class work force to deal with world-class challenges.

And who will work for third-world wages.

[Gunslingr3]

Willie, you are seriously slacking.
The U.S. capitalist economy eliminates 27-35 million jobs every single year. Every. Single. Year.

[Willie Green]

Such a high turnover rate is indicative of an unstable economy.

[Gunslingr3]

Such a high turnover rate is indicative of an unstable economy.

How do you know?

[Gunslingr3]

Such a high turnover rate is indicative of an unstable economy.

P.S. A 'stable' economy is a stagnant economy, I don't think that's what you're looking for either.

[dadokane]

my 17 year old is considering obtaining a college degree in IT (information technology)

will there be a job for him in 4 years?

[Gunslingr3]

my 17 year old is considering obtaining a college degree in IT (information technology) will there be a job for him in 4 years?

Are you asking if others will find a way to put him to work? Sure. Will it be making the same wage people did 6 years ago when their was a different demand for the IT labor relative to supply of IT labor, nope - the world never quits changing.

Increasing the pool of qualified IT labor is the end of the world to some, especially if they can manage to ignore the benefits bestowed upon the millions and millions of people who will in the future be paying less and less for IT goods and services.

[Willie Green]

will there be a job for him in 4 years?

Possibly. But the more serious question is "will it pay enough to have been worth the money invested in his education?"

The Administration is obsessed with making America "more competitive" by crushing Middle Class prosperity into parity with Third World compensation levels. I'd recommend a more stable profession: perhaps mortuary science. There will be an increasing demand for undertakers as Baby Boomers age.

[oust the louse]

Let's not forget we are designing and producing better and more efficiently. Robots (pick and place machines) are doing the work of laborers who once stood in factories 8 hours a day.
I'm also P'Oed at the HR directors who eliminate the qualified American worker for H1B visa status applicants.They have to eventually sponsor the person in which costs money.Are they too lazy to look for good applicants from the states?

[lelio]

The U.S. capitalist economy eliminates 27-35 million jobs every single year. Every. Single. Year.

And it should generate better paying jobs. Right now the growth is in low paying retail ones.

[discostu]

yes, this is a cyclical thing, when the economy is rough companies move expenses out of the country. What the doomers refuse to aknowledge is that outsourcing (the act of having your IT work done outside your own company) takes a lot of infrastructure and most tech based companies can't do it effectively for very long. Outsourcing becomes even more difficult when it is outsourced offshore (don't let people snow you into thinking all outsourcing is offshore, quite a fair bit of outsourcing stays in America, ask Veritest) the challenges increase and the infrastructure needs increase as well. The amusing part is how many companies have been seeing outsourcing as a cure without bothering to crate the infrastructure, they are learning the hard lessons and will be production back in house (assuming they survive the cost of learning those hard lessons).

Really only large well established companies can outsource, most of the tech industry is not made up of these companies. For every IBM there's over a hundred "bob's software" with a couple dozen employees. Bob's Software can't outsource down the street, they don't have the hardware or the business practices, forget sending work to India.

The bursting of the tech bubble is what pushed the economy into a down cycle, coming out of recessions generally follows the rule of first in last out, it's the lagging industry with the biggest hole to climb out of. But climb it will, and is. Just look at the numbers, job losses this year were half of what they were, next year will probably be flat maybe with slight gain while the rest of the country does huge gains. By the time your 17 year-old is out of college the cycle should be back into a nice upswing.

[Gunslingr3]

And it should generate better paying jobs. Right now the growth is in low paying retail ones.

So, should we work in textile mills, or retail stores? Which would you prefer?

[Paul Ross]

Ping. Check this incipient security risk out.

[searchandrecovery]

Ahhhh, the middle-class holocaust continues (if not high-tech jobs, then the back office, or research, or tech-support, or engineering, or manufacturing).

The results are in - NAFTA's a bad joke. Free-Trade means you'll freely trade your neighbor's job for personal financial gain. GREED IS GOOD! Capitalism seems to work best when not given free reign.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!