{"84691":{"#nid":"84691","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Georgia Losing High Tech Jobs at Rate Faster than the Nation, Study Shows","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAs recently as 2001, a study by the industry organization American Electronics Association (AEA) had ranked Georgia ahead of all other states in growth of this industry sector.  High-tech jobs are important economically because of their generally high wages.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Georgia did well in adding high-tech jobs in the boom years of the 1990s,\u0022 says researcher Philip Shapira, a professor in Georgia Tech\u0027s School of Public Policy. \u0022But, following a peak at the end of 2000, Georgia\u0027s high-tech jobs total has declined in every subsequent quarter.\u0022  \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EDespite losing high-tech jobs overall at a rate faster than the nation, several sectors within the technology segment have actually gained employment. Jobs in engineering and architectural services, research and testing services, and drug manufacturing grew in Georgia between 2000 and 2002.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Georgia has special capabilities in these areas,\u0022 notes Jan Youtie, a researcher in Georgia Tech\u0027s Economic Development Institute who co-authored the study with Shapira and Public Policy Doctoral Student Jue Wang. \u0022We have a critical mass of engineering capabilities and research capabilities; it\u0027s the third-largest sector with over 31,000 jobs in 2002.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe Georgia Tech study indicates that Georgia\u0027s competitive advantage lies in research- and service-related technology sectors. Three service industries make up more than 70 percent of Georgia\u0027s high-tech sector: telecommunications services, computer and data processing services, and engineering services. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EIn 2002, high-technology firms employed nearly seven percent of Georgia\u0027s workforce, or 222,000 employees. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe Georgia Tech study also demonstrates that high-tech services is a larger employment sector in Georgia than high-tech manufacturing, with services accounting for approximately 177,000 jobs and manufacturing accounting for approximately 44,000 jobs. The services sector also accounts for higher wages than high-tech manufacturing.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia\u0027s specialty is in knowledge-intensive high-tech services rather than manufacturing, according to Youtie. \u0022High-tech services in Georgia are often overlooked despite outperforming high-tech manufacturing in employment scale and average wages.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EOverall, Georgia\u0027s high-tech industries paid very well compared to the average private sector firm.  Average weekly wages for employees in Georgia high-tech establishments in 2001 were $1,192, compared to $684 for all private-sector employees.  That has magnified the economic impact of the job losses, Shapira notes.  \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022These are much higher wage jobs, so it\u0027s nice when they go up. But when they go down it takes a disproportionately greater amount of money out of local economies,\u0022 he says.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWhile national employment levels in high-tech sectors stabilized during the second quarter of 2002, Georgia\u0027s high-tech employment levels continued to drop, according to the study.  Georgia\u0027s decline began one quarter before national employment levels began to drop and continued to fall by 1.6 percent between the first and second quarters of 2002 - even as high-tech employment stabilized nationally.\n\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"The economic downturn has cost Georgia its national lead in high-tech job growth, a new Georgia Tech study shows.  Analysis of employment data shows that Georgia has lost high-tech employment faster than the nation over the past two years.","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27304","created_gmt":"2003-05-07 00:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:03:41","author":"Matthew Nagel","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2003-04-30T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2003-04-30T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.edi.gatech.edu\/articles\/articlesans.cfm?ID=124","title":"Some sectors expand"}],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003E \u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=\u0022\u003EContact  \u003C\/a\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}