High-tech jobs down by 560,000 since 2001

High-tech jobs down by 560,000 since 2001
MANHASSET,N.Y. — The U.S. high-tech sector lost 560,000 jobs in the last two years, down 10 percent from January 2001 to 5.1 million by the end of 2002, according to a industry report on high-tech employment released Wednesday (March 19).

The Washington-based American Electronics Association (AEA), said the hardest hit sectors were high-tech manufacturing, which fell by 415,000 jobs over the period, and communications services, which dropped by 135,000.

The only sectors to show gains were software services, which added 5,300 positions, and electro-medical equipment manufacturing, which gained 500 jobs nationwide.

The report was a far cry from the last one AEA issued in October 2002, when the high-tech sector was down by only 113,000 jobs for the first half of 2002. Despite the drop, the group said at the time it was "cautiously optimistic" about future employment prospects because the drop between May and June 2002 totaled just 700 jobs. That was the smallest decline recorded over the previous year and a half.

Job prospects have since grown decidedly more gloomy and uncertain. With 123,000 jobs lost during the last six months of 2002, "this doesn't point to an imminent turnaround," the report concluded.

Michaela Platzer, AEA vice president of research, said "there's no way to tell when we will hit bottom or when we will come out of this recession. Platzer called current economic conditions "very tough."

As bad as the jobs picture is, Platzer noted that the industry is still not in as bad shape as it was during the recession of the early 1990s when industry employment fell below 5 million.

During the full year 2002, the number of high-tech jobs fell every month for a total of 236,000 jobs lost for the year. AEA based its report on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' Current Employment Survey that covers 350,000 businesses nationwide.