Great News - FL gains 1,100 High-tech Jobs

Florida gains 1,100 high-tech jobs

Orlando Business Journal

Florida’s high-tech industry added 1,100 net jobs in 2008, according to the 13th annual Cyberstates report published on Wednesday.

The modest 0.4 percent gain to 292,300 high-tech jobs during a recession compared with an overall 4.1 percent loss in the state’s private work force in 2008, the most current data available.

Other findings from the study include:

• Florida high-tech firms employed 44 out of every 1,000 private-sector workers in 2008, ranking 26th nationwide.

• The state’s high-tech workers earned an average wage of $68,200, or 72 percent more than Florida’s average private-sector wage, ranking it 33rd nationwide.

• The state’s high-tech payroll totaled $19.9 billion in 2008, ranking it seventh nationwide.

• Florida had 24,500 high-tech businesses in 2008, ranking it third nationwide.

Nationally, the high-tech industry lost 245,600 jobs in 2009, for a total of 5.9 million workers. The recession–induced 4 percent drop is slightly lower than the 5 percent decline in the private sector as a whole and followed four years of steady growth in tech industry employment.

The study is put together every year by the TechAmerica Foundation.