WASHINGTON, May 22 -- Approximately 1.2 million US workers have joined the high-tech industry since 1993 according to a joint study by the American Electronics Association (AEA) and the Nasdaq Stock Market. This makes the high-tech workforce 5-million strong as of 1999.
The report, titled Cyberstates 4.0, found that all 50 states including Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia saw the creation of high-tech jobs between 1997 and 1998. By far the largest employer of the high-tech worker is California. Attracting 193,000 new positions since 1993, it is reported that California now employs more than 835,000 people in the computer and technology fields. Texas is next highest with 411,000 workers, an increase of more than 132,000 since 1993. And the state that employs the most workers per capita is Colorado; a distinction previously held by New Hampshire.
Today's U.S. high-tech industry is not only invigorating and sustaining the American economy but that of most states as well, reported William T. Archey, president and CEO of AEA. Cyberstates 4.0 shows conclusively that the high-tech industry is no longer confined to Silicon Valley and Boston's Route 128. It is now an industry whose scope, dynamism and impact extends from sea to sea.
The average yearly wage of a high-tech worker in 1998 was $58,000. The average wage for a worker in the private sector that year was $32,000, an 82 percent differential.