WASHINGTON– The U.S. tech sector added nearly 190,000 jobs over the past 18 months, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Between January 2004 and June 2005, employment in the tech sector reached 5.72 million, up 3.4% during that time.

The data, just released by the AeA, indicate that the tech sector has generated a net increase in jobs over the past six, 12, and 18 month timespans.

"The data confirm our suspicion that the high-tech industry has recovered from the bursting of the tech bubble of 2000-2001," said AeA president and CEO William T. Archey. "While industry growth is by no means explosive, the rise in high-tech jobs has been steady, and we find it encouraging that even tech manufacturing experienced a small increase. The trend over the last 18 months has impressed us. After precipitous declines in 2001 and 2002, job losses began to slow, but only now are we witnessing actual gains. This benefits our economy as a whole because tech jobs pay 84 percent more than the average private sector job."

At the individual sector level, technology manufacturers added 21,800 net jobs in the U.S. from January 2004 to June 2005 for a total of 1.36 million jobs, a 1.6% increase, the first growth in tech manufacturing employment since 2000.

Tech services providers added 167,000 net jobs over the same time period for a total of 4.36 million jobs, a four percent rise. Within this sector, engineering and tech services added the most jobs, 100,800, followed by software services with employment growth of 75,600. Only communications services experienced a decline, losing 9,400 jobs.

“We are pleased to see these positive trends,” said Archey. “And, we remain guardedly optimistic. However, continued growth of the U.S. tech sector is linked to our overall competitiveness in science and technology. Understand that while the U.S. remains preeminent in these spheres, our lead is slipping. Once we start addressing this issue, it will only enhance job growth in our industry. We need to renew our commitments to research and development, an educated workforce, and high-skilled immigration. The rest of the world is catching up to us and its time we start realizing that.”

The free reports are available at http://www.aeanet.org/research.