August 22, 2003 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)
Metro areas with highest percentages of high-tech workers
San Jose, California, had the highest concentration of high-tech workers in the U.S. in 2001 among metropolitan areas, with just over 10 percent of workers employed in high-tech occupations.
![Employment shares for metropolitan areas with the largest shares of high-tech workers, 2001](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20120921220339im_/http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/images/2003/aug/wk3/art05.gif)
[Chart data—TXT]
Boulder-Longmont, Colorado had the next highest share, at just under 10 percent, followed by Melbourne-Titusville-Palm Bay, Florida which had a high-tech employment share of about 7 percent.
Average annual wages in 2001 for high-tech occupations in the 10 metropolitan areas shown in the chart ranged from $48,120 in Melbourne-Titusville-Palm Bay, Florida to $79,800 in San Jose, California. In all of these areas the high-tech occupations had wages at least 50 percent higher than the average for non-high-tech occupations.
These data are from the BLS Occupational Employment Statistics program. To learn more, see
Occupational Employment and Wages, 2001, Bulletin 2559, June 2003. The term
"High-tech workers" is defined for this analysis as workers in 36 occupations utilizing new technologies to the greatest extent. This list of high-tech occupations includes computer-related occupations, engineers, scientists, technicians, technologists, and multi-media artists and animators.
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