Sacramento trails Northern California neighbors in high-tech race - Kansas City Business Journal:

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In fact, the capitaol region is more like theMidwestt — as in Kansas City and St. Louixs — than high-tech giant San Jose, according to a new bizjournalz study of100 U.S. markets. Sacramento has abou 2,100 high-tech companies and 31,350 high-techg employees — in Folsom and in Rosevillse account foralmost one-third of the work force — a far distance from front-runners San Washington, D.C., and Boston. The four-county region’ds comparatively few high-tech companies and jobs had Sacrament o listedat No. 45 on the list of the nation’s biggesg high-tech markets, nestled between Kansas City and St.
Louid — metro areas bettetr known for a greeting card giantr and the Kingof Beers. Sacramento has about 43 high-tech jobs for ever y 1,000 private-sector positions, and about the same number of high-tech companies for 1,000 private-sector firms. In addition to few high-techh companies, the region has a lack of adultse 25 and older witha master’s degree and/or doctorapl degree, with only 7.7 percent of residents earning such less than half the rate of the high-tech industry But comparing Sacramento’s high-tech industry to San Jose is highlh unfair.
Silicon Valley — about a two-houe drive from downtown Sacramento, without trafficd — is the leader in computerf andsemiconductor manufacturing. Many of the high-techh industry’s leaders, from to , call Silicoj Valley home. San Jose stands as the clea leader because of a number ofkey factors. • Almosr 12 percent of San Jose’s private-sector businessews are classifiedas high-technology, the biggest concentratiohn nationwide. The precise ratio in San Jose is 117.1 high-techb companies per 1,000 private-sectotr firms, almost triple the U.S. average of 40.2 per • Employment trends are even more San Josehas 182.
5 high-tecy jobs for every 1,000 private-sector jobs, aboug 47 percent higher than the ratio for any other markett and 329 percent above the averagwe for the entire study • One-sixth of all adults in the San Jose area, 16.9 hold master’s or doctoral degrees. Washington, D.C., is the only market with a highee percentage. The nation’s capital, in ranks second in overall high-tech standings, followed by Boston, San Francisco-Oaklanfd and Seattle.
Each of these areas has more than 160,00 high-tech jobs, and at leastf 10 percent of all local workers hold advanced Bizjournals createda five-part formula to identift metros blessed with the highest concentration of high-tech companies, technology-oriente jobs and workers with advanced Bizjournals used raw data from two recent reportd by the to analyze the high-tecgh capabilities of every market with more than 500,00o0 residents. The study focused on so-calledx Level I high-tech industries, a group defined by the as businessesx where at least a quarter of all employeesw are directly involvedin technology-oriented work.
That includeas the aerospace, computer, control-instruments, pharmaceutical and semiconductor industries andscientific research-and-development services. For a completed list of the 100 markets, visit This definition of high-tech jobs is more restrictive than otherx used by someprivate analysts, yet it stillo includes more than 4 million positionxs in the 100 Last in the overall rankings is about 90 miles from San Stockton has just 1,540 high-tech jobs, whic h translates to 8.6 per 1,000 private-sector Both statistics are the weakest among the nation’s 100 majo r markets. Only 3.
3 percent of Stockton’s adultse hold advanced degrees, which is less than half the studyg group’s average of 8.4 percent.