Orange County Register

Orange County has more than 100,000 high-tech jobs, ranking it 14th nationally among major metropolitan areas, says a new report from the AeA, a nationwide tech advocacy group formerly called the American Electronics Association.

The average salary for O.C. tech jobs is $81,000, 68% higher than the county’s private-sector average of $48,000, the report says.  And 7.4% of the county’s private sector jobs are at high-tech firms.

It is the first time since 2000 that the group has issued the report, called Cybercities: An Overview of the High-Technology Industry in the Nation’s top 60 Cities. The tech crash halted the practice although AeA continued an annual states report.

Cybercities gives separate rankings for different types of jobs across 49 different NAICS industry codes. Here how Orange County stands in some combined categories:

The numbers are from 2006, the latest available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but still dated.

However, the general findings and rankings are still valid, said Don Hicks, executive director of AeA Orange County/Inland Empire, with offices in Irvine, representing 120 high-tech companies.

The regional breakdown gives a more complete picture of where high-tech jobs abound, the report says, because states like California have multiple high-tech clusters, while some high-tech regions, such as the Washington D.C.-Maryland-Virginia-West Virginia cluster, cross state lines.

The value of this regional breakdown hit home two years ago, Hicks said, when AeA discovered that California’s high-tech jobs were almost evenly divided between northern and southern California. Before that it was commonly believed that all the high-wage tech jobs were in the Silicon Valley.

“In Orange County we do anticipate growth in technology employment, although we are affected by the decline in housing prices, rising unemployment (generally) and credit problems that make it harder for tech companies to find funding to grow,” Hicks said. “The number one challenge for our members is finding talent.”

On the other hand, Orange County’s tech community is more diverse than Los Angeles or San Diego, which makes it more resilient in economic downturns,  he added.

Orange County ranks among the top 10 nationally in six of seven NAISC manufacturing categories, and among the top 20 in five of seven service industries.

Nationwide, the top Cybercities are:

1. New York Metro, 316,500 jobs
2. Washington D.C., 295,800 jobs
3. San Jose/Silicon Valley, 225,300 jobs
4. Boston, 191,700 jobs
5. Dallas-Fort Worth, 176,000 jobs
6. Los Angeles, 172,200 jobs
7. Chicago, 164,000 jobs
8. Phildelphia, 132,200 jobs
9. Seattle, 127,700 jobs
10. Atlanta, 126,700 jobs

The top areas for average high-tech wages are:

1. San Jose/Silicon Valley, $144,800
2. San Francisco, $118,500
3. Austin, $100,500
4. Oakland, $96,900
5. Seattle, $96,200

AeA hopes the Cybercities report will stir political and policymaker support for high-tech concerns.

“The tech industry has long demonstrated its ability to drive the U.S. economy,” the report says. “But it will continue to do so only if we as a country address unprecedented global competitiveness challenges as nations around the world open their markets to trade, embrace technology and invest in research and education.”

Click here to read AeA’s summary of the Cybercities report. The entire report costs $250.

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