By Victor Godinez
Staff Writer, Dallas Morning News
vgodinez@dallasnews.com
Texas maintained its rank as the second-largest state for high-employment in 2010, behind California.
But Texas also lost the second-most tech jobs last year, again behind California.
The data comes from the annual Cyberstates report, issued Wednesday by the TechAmerica Foundation.
"Study the Texas economy and you are no longer limited to the agricultural- and energy-based economy of the past," Jeff Clark, vice president at Tech-America, said in a statement.
"Texas is technology, and Texas continues to move forward in its role as one of America's two leading cyberstates. Despite experiencing some setbacks in the most recent data, the Lone Star State is well-positioned to continue its growth in the years to come."
Overall, Texas had 456,460 high-tech workers in 2010, behind California's 931,040.
But Texas also lost 11,800 tech jobs, a 3 percent drop from 2009 and steeper than the national decline. California was the only state with more tech jobs lost, 18,100.
Not all tech professions shrank in Texas, though.
The state added 1,900 jobs in the field of computer systems design and related service and 300 positions in engineering services.
And tech workers in Texas make much higher salaries than their non-tech counterparts.
TechAmerica reported that salaries for Texas tech workers averaged $84,837 last year, 84 percent higher than the average private-sector wage in the state.
Nationally, tech employment declined by 115,800 from 2009 to 5.75 million in 2010.
But job prospects for techies appear to be improving in 2011.
TechAmerica noted that, on a national level, tech employment at the end of June had increased by 115,000 positions since the beginning of 2011. The organization does not yet have 2011 data for state job growth.