Colorado’s high-tech industry exported $4.1 billion in goods and merchandise last year, up 14 percent from 2003, a new report says.
The industry also shed 14,700 jobs, an 8 percent decline, from 2002 to 2003, the most recent numbers available.
Those mixed results highlighted Colorado’s portion of “Cyberstates 2005: A State-by-State Overview of the High-Technology Industry.”
The report, in its eighth year, is scheduled to be released today by the national trade group AeA, formerly the American Electronics Association.
“Technology remains a critical industry for the Colorado economy,” said Jessica Wright, executive director of AeA Mountain States Council, which represents 90 technology companies in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.
In 2004, high tech accounted for 61 percent of the state’s $6.7 billion in exports.
Colorado ranked 19th among the states in high-tech research and development expenditures with $4.2 billion. It was 10th- best in venture capital investments at $444 million in 2004.
The state ranked No. 1 in concentration of high-tech workers. Ninety-one of every 1,000 private-sector Colorado workers earned paychecks in high tech in 2003.
“It’s good to see we have maintained our high ranking,” said economist Patricia Silverstein, president of Littleton’s Development Research Partners.
She said most economic sectors in Colorado recently saw similar declines in employment but surges in exports, as companies “tried to increase production without adding workers.”
The weak U.S. dollar and companies’ willingness to once again invest in equipment also fueled the increase, she said.
Colorado’s tech jobs carried the nation’s seventh-best average annual pay at $74,459; private-sector jobs in Colorado paid $38,889 on average in 2003. Colorado’s 10,080 high-tech companies had a total payroll of $12.1 billion in 2003, the report said.
While the Cyberstates report only had 2003 employment numbers on tech employment, a separate report released last month by the Colorado Labor Department said the state lost 3,600 information technology jobs last year.
Staff writer Will Shanley can be reached at 303-820-1473 or wshanley@denverpost.com.
