Rising unemployment and constant media attention focused on the national recession has many worried about their jobs. Although many industries have been hit particularly hard, some sectors continue to provide jobs. According to a recent report from TechAmerica, certain areas are still creating new technology jobs.
TechAmerica’s yearly Cyberstates report found that one of the best areas in the country for jobs in technology is Virginia. The state ranked 5th in the nation, showing that employers in the area added 5,300 jobs in 2007, which was a 2 percent increase.
The most recent data available for many states comes from 2007. The problem with this is the fact that the effects from the recession won’t show up in this information.
The largest part of the tech industry in Virginia during this time was computer systems design and services related to this spatiality, according to the report. Approximately 126,400 people were employed in this sector in the area and it generated 7,400 jobs during the course of 2007. Because of this, the state was ranked 2nd in the nation for this type of technology jobs after California.
Another area of technology employment that grew according to TechAmerica in Virginia was the technology manufacturing sector. Employers in the area added 400 jobs. In addition to this, the software publishing part of the industry created 200 jobs.
Parts of the industry that lost technology positions in 2007 included communications services, which did away with 1,300 positions, engineering services, where employers cut 1,000 jobs, and research and development and testing labs, where 300 positions were done away with. Despite all of this, Virginia still managed to be named the 5th in the country for the 4th year in a row.
Near by Maryland also came in fairly high, with TechAmerica ranking the state 13th in the country. Despite this, Maryland only added 77 jobs in this industry during 2007.
The largest area of growth for the industry in Maryland was computer systems designs, where employers created 1,200 jobs. Another 100 jobs were created by engineering services. The fact that the state saw a decrease of 1,600 positions in other parts of the industry undid much of the good that the newly generated jobs could have done, causing a net gain of only 77 positions.
The District of Columbia didn’t fair as well, coming in at 36th in the country. Employers in the area did away with around 2,900 positions in 2007. Despite this, D.C. still has one of the highest concentrations of technology jobs in the country.
Although all of these statistics tell us little about the current state of the industry, according to data from the end of 2008, technology continues to do better than many other sectors in the country.
Tags: jobs, technology jobs