U.S. High Tech employment since 2001

Note:
This blog uses press releases from the AeA Cyberstates report(s). The AeA redefined its definition of "High Tech" in 2003. Defining the High-Tech Industry: AeA's New NAICS-based industry definition. Cyberstates reports prior to 2003 were based upon the SIC occupational classifications and are not relevant to current AeA Cyberstates reports.

Overview:
I've been interested in presenting a visual representation of what happened to tech workers in the 2001 recession -- here's the latest.

According to the AeA Cyberstates yearly reports, "High Tech" employment experienced job losses of 945,000 in the 2001 recession. Since this drop in employment, the "High Tech" sector has recovered about 300,000 jobs, but during the period in question, a probable 669,681 H-1B and L-1 computer-related workers were added to the workforce. (Detailed below)

H-1B and L-1 workers are not admitted into the U.S. without guaranteed employment, so an additional 369,681 American "High Tech" workers were replaced with temporary workers, bringing the job losses to 1.3 million. In addition, "High Tech" is a very young industry, the rate of retirement should be nominal in relationship to the number of new college graduates, bringing the job deficit to 1.5 million.

Factoid: The Unemployment Level for college graduates in Feb 2001 was (1.6%) 581,000, the current unemployment level is (2.1%) 944,000 for college graduates. (Feb2008)

Click on image to enlarge




About the graph:
The graph shows employment losses in the "High Tech" occupations, new workers are "added" to the job losses to show the excess supply of labor in these occupations.

AeA Cyberstates High Tech job losses:
The AeA Cyberstates "High Tech" report, states: "Tech employment declined by 333,000 in 2003 and by 612,000 in 2002." The data here is taken from various Cyberstates press releases.
The full report can be purchased yearly at http://www.aeanet.org/. Cost: $95 AeA members; $190 non-members.

Computer-related H-1B visas (added):
The H-1B data is for initial approvals in computer related occupations only. Continuing employment approvals are not included because they sometimes exceed the 3 year period they reference. My assumption is that these additional approvals are for those awaiting a priority date in a green card program.

The H-1B data (2001-2005) is from the various USCIS reports: "Characteristics of Specialty Occupation Workers (H-1B)…"

Detailed H-1B data for 2006 is unavailable, 2007 data was obtained from the NSF report:
National Science Foundation: "Science and Engineering Indicators 2008""Chapter 2. Section: Higher Education in Science and Engineering"
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind08/c2/c2s4.htmL-1L-1

Intracompany visas (added):
The L-1 Intracompany visa data was obtained from travel.state.gov and is preliminary.
http://travel.state.gov/pdf/FY06AnnualReportTableXVIA.pdf

Data for 2007 is unavailable. The L-1 data is 90% of the total visas to conform with the following:

"From 1999 to 2004, nine of the ten firms that petitioned for the most L-1 workers were computer and IT related outsourcing service firms that specialize in labor from India." http://www.dhs.gov/xoig/assets/katovrsght/OIG_06-22_Jan06.pdf

Perm Resident BSCompSci. Degrees (added):
The educational data is from the National Science foundation. Degrees awarded to temporary residents were subtracted from the total Bachelors in Computer Science to obtain the number of degrees awarded to permanent residents/citizens.
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf07307/content.cfm?pub_id=3634&id=2