Thursday, November 20, 2003
The U.S. high-tech sector lost 540,000 jobs in 2002 with over half of the layoffs occurring in the electronics manufacturing sector, according to the American Electronics Association (AeA.)
The trade organization said today in its annual Cyberstates report, which details employment conditions in the high-tech industry, that jobs in the software sector fell 150,000 in 2002 while about 15,000 engineers were laid off during the period.
The only bright employment spot for the high-tech industry in 2002 was in R&D and testing labs where jobs rose 7,000 from the prior year.
Since then, the rate of job attrition has slowed and although the AeA expects high-tech jobs to further decline in 2003, there would be fewer layoffs across the sector, the association said.
"While high-tech employment fell by 8% last year, preliminary 2003 data show a significant slowdown in high-tech job losses, with a decline of 4%," said William Archey, president of AeA, Washington D.C.
"We project that the 2003 high-tech job losses will total 234,000"down 57% from the 540,000 decline in 2002," Archey said.
The AeA reported California was among the states that suffered the most from the high-tech downturn that started late in 2000.
The state lost 123,000, or 23% of the 540,000 U.S. high-tech jobs slashed in 2002.
By: Docmemory
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