Utah government and business officials like to talk about Salt Lake City's burgeoning high-technology sector, but a new study shows the area lagging behind others in some key categories.
The study released this week by the NASDAQ stock market and the American Electronics Association trade group ranked Salt Lake City 38th among 60 "cybercities" in the number of high-tech jobs; 21st in high-tech job growth between 1993 and 1998; and next-to-last in the average high-tech wage, at $40,510.
The study, however, may be skewed by a couple of significant points. Because it defined the Salt Lake area as Salt Lake, Davis and Weber counties, it neglected significant high-tech growth in Utah County. And critics across the country said two-year-old figures used in forming the rankings are simply outdated in the fast-paced high-tech world.
"I know we've had significant growth," said Richard Nelson, CEO of the Utah Information Technologies Association. "We are one of the leading information technology and Internet areas in the country. My sense is that, in reality, we are higher-ranked than that."
Rod Linton, director of the state Office of Technology Development, said Provo/Orem is a major omission. "There is a significant amount of our high-tech business, particularly in information technology, in the Provo/Orem area," he said. "To exclude that leaves a misleading picture of what's going on in Utah.
"And things change so rapidly in this industry, data that is two years old is almost ancient history."
The study, the first of many planned in upcoming years, used data collected by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau.
Nelson, however, said studies indicate Utah's information technology average wage was $42,740 in 1998 and $45,228 last year. That compares with the average Utah wage for public and private nonagricultural workers of $25,752 in 1998, although the study announced this week said it was $27,977 in Utah at that time.
"It's unfortunate they didn't use industry stats," Nelson said. "It's old data. If you talk to executive search firms nationally and regionally regarding firms based in Utah, we are much more competitive than that. The figures don't fit with the reality of the market."
Linton said people poring over the rankings need to consider Utah's income figures in relation to the overall cost of living. A million-dollar home in the Silicon Valley probably could be purchased for between $100,000 and $200,000 along the Wasatch Front.
"Anytime you look just at raw stats, they can be misleading," he said.
Still, Nelson said the 38th-place ranking of total high-tech jobs was impressive. "To be 38th out of 60 in comparison to much more urban and populated centers, that's quite good for a reasonably rural state."
Linton noted that the Salt Lake metropolitan area has just more than 1 million people, making it small compared with Boston and other higher-ranked cities in the study.
"If you rank data based on a per-population calculation, we always look better, and that's a fair way to look at things," he said.
Salt Lake City was among the top five in home computer ownership, trailing San Jose, Colorado Springs and Portland, Ore. That was according to data from August of this year.
Nelson noted that Scarborough Research in June listed Salt Lake City as the top "computer-savvy" city in the United States, that Salt Lake/Provo in 1999 was ranked second by Congentics Inc. among metro areas for starting and growing a high-tech company, and that Salt Lake City was ranked in the top 10 "hot new tech cities" in the world by Newsweek magazine in late 1998.
"There are a lot of rankings, and I think you have to go with ones that are consistent, and we do get consistently high ratings," he said.
Gov. Mike Leavitt's Silicon Valley Alliance, aimed at getting spillover Silicon Valley high-tech industry to locate in Utah, is helping the state, Linton said.
"We have generally done well and we have a good reputation, but we don't want to sit on our laurels and say, 'That's good enough.' We need to bring industry here so that, without question, we are among the leading high-tech areas in the country."
E-MAIL: bwallace@desnews.com