Experts: NH behind other states in high-tech sector

A group of high-tech experts says New Hampshire's technology sector is lagging behind the rest of the country.

The group, which met in Nashua on Thursday at an event sponsored by the Greater Nashua Chamber of Commerce, says new skilled workers and additional capital investment are needed to help businesses pick up the pace.

Matthew Kazmierczak, vice president of the American Electronics Association, a technology trade group, said a recent survey of the high-tech sector shows the Granite State is lagging behind the rest of the country. Nationally, high-technology jobs in 2006 increased by about 3 percent but New Hampshire's tech industry showed no growth in 2006.

He said New Hampshire employed 37,500 high-tech workers in 2006, placing it 34th in the country. Massachusetts, meanwhile, was ranked sixth.

Kazmierczak said most of the decrease is attributed to the loss of more than 5,000 jobs in the electronic components industry since 2000. The electronics association used statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to determine its high-technology sector trends in the country and in each state.

Kazmierczak said the good news is that the state's high-tech industry has room for job growth.

"More jobs are possible, but there's a shortage of skilled workers," he said. "The high-tech industry is growing, but not as fast as it could."

He attributed the stagnant job growth to a shortage of American workers with adequate math, science and engineering education at the primary and secondary school levels to prepare them for high-tech employment.

"Education is tremendously important for us," he said. As a result of the shortage, companies are looking for highly-skilled immigrants to fill in the gap, he said.

Nationally, venture capital investment in small high-tech companies has reached it's highest level since the dotcom bubble burst in 2000, said Phil Fremeau, the founding executive director of the Tuck School of Business' Center for Private Equity and Entrepreneurship at Dartmouth College.

Fremeau said New Hampshire's fortunes are "tied to the hip" to Massachusetts. He said when entrepreneurs were starting Internet companies in the late 1990s, many of them looked beyond Boston and toward southern New Hampshire.

"New Hampshire has not yet rebounded from when the bubble burst," Fremeau said, saying the "vacuum sucked capital back to Boston."

Sam Page, a consultant for Robert Half Technology, a staffing firm specializing in high-tech jobs, said high workforce demand and low supply have caused salaries to skyrocket, making it harder for smaller upstart companies to keep talented workers from leaving the state.

Information from: Thne Telegraph, http://www.nashuatelegraph.com