o what extent does being competitive in the technology sector translate into a state's overall competitiveness? It depends on how well that state is doing in other measures relative to other states, if the Beacon Hill Institute (BHI) at Suffolk University's State Competitiveness Report 2007 is any indication. Now in its seventh year, BHI's report ranks the 50 states' overall competitiveness based on their performance in eight sub-indices: government and fiscal policies, security, infrastructure, human resources, technology, business incubation, openness and environmental policy.
   Site Selection's own Competitiveness Ranking appears annually in the May issue; it ranks states on their ability to secure new or expanded corporate facility projects according to several proprietary New Plant database measures and their performance in the publication's previous year's business climate ranking. The Beacon Hill ranking, and others seeking to quantify states' desirability to corporate investors, deserve consideration to the extent companies' internal resources would prevent gathering such exhaustive data on their own.
   With respect to technology, the Beacon Hill report's underlying analysis looks at states' academic R&D per $1,000 in gross state product; National Institutes of Health support to state institutions, per capita; patents per 100,000 inhabitants; science and engineering graduate students per 100,000 inhabitants; science and engineering degrees awarded per 100,000 inhabitants; scientists and engineers as a percent of the labor force; and percent of total wage and salary jobs in high-technology industries. For criteria underlying the seven other sub-indices, see the online version of the report at www.beaconhill.org.
   The top five states based on the technology criteria alone are: Massachusetts, Maryland, Colorado, Connecticut and Vermont. The overall top five states are Utah, Massachusetts, Colorado, North Dakota and Idaho. Note that two states appear in both top-five rankings – Massachusetts and Colorado. So besides scoring well in the technology sub-index, they had to score well in others, too. Massachusetts' other strong suits are human resources (1st place in that sub-index), business incubation (3rd) and openness (8th). Colorado's strengths, besides technology, are security (2nd place overall), business incubation (5th), infrastructure (8th), and environmental policy (9th).
   Several other states deserve mention by virtue of their strong finishes in both the technology sub-index and the overall BHI ranking. These include Utah, which is 1st overall and 6th in the technology sub-index ranking; Minnesota (6th overall and 8th in technology); and New Hampshire (9th overall and 10th in technology).
   Another recent study, "Science and Engineering Indicators 2008" from the National Science Foundation, drills down to the metro level by ranking metropolitan areas according to their percentage of science and engineering (S&E) workers relative to the overall work force. The numbers are from mid-2006, but the point remains: Certain areas are very well stocked with S&E workers – more than three times the national average of such workers in some cases, and their locations should be of particular interest to I.T. and software development companies considering U.S. sites (see the chart).    But even a relatively strong supply of high-tech workers in certain metros and states around the country will not be enough to keep the U.S. software and digital content industries competitive in the future. In fact, says the Software & Information Industry Association, the sector faces a severe worker shortage in the coming years, especially without reform to the country's green card system.
   "Software and digital content companies face a work-force skills shortage that is rising dramatically," noted Mark Bohannon general counsel and senior vice president of SIIA (www.siia.net) in September 2007, following failure on the part of Congress to move forward with immigration reform that might have raised the ceiling on the number of H-1B visas for temporary high-skilled workers. "The challenge will only get greater in the coming years."
   According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, added Bohannon, the number of jobs for computer software engineers in the U.S. will reach 450,000 by 2014, making it one of the fastest-growing occupations in the U.S. – and one that he says is certain to outstrip supply of U.S.-born workers.
   "In the Information Age, a highly educated and skilled work force is essential as intellect and innovation give the United States its competitive edge," says Bohannon. "And yet, we have thousands of highly skilled workers here today who want nothing more than to work in the U.S. and contribute to our vibrant and strongly growing economy, but who are at risk of being sent home to compete with us. The price of failing to act will be steep. If we do not have green card reform [soon], thousands of the talented professionals that presently work for American employers will leave to take jobs with our competitors abroad."
   In January, SIIA issued a report, "Software and Information: Driving the Global Knowledge Economy," that underscores the software and information industries' importance to U.S. economic and job growth. Among the report's observations are these:
   • Employment in the sector grew 17 percent between 1997 and 2006, adding more than 400,000 jobs.
   • Software and information industry overseas sales accounted for 13 percent of the $483 million in overall overseas sales in 2006.
   • And cross-border exports of computer software have grown 30 percent in recent years, from $14.3 billion in 2000 to almost $19 billion in 2006.
   • Perhaps most importantly, workers in the sector are among the nation's most well-compensated, with an average wage of $75,400 in 2006; the average of all private-sector workers in 2006 was $42,400.
   So it stands to reason that U.S. work-force policymakers would be working overtime to broaden the sector's growth potential. But that is not the case, as the cap on high-skilled worker visas demonstrates.
   "It's like putting a sign on the U.S. border that says, 'You're not welcome here' to those workers looking to immigrate to the U.S.," says David LeDuc, SIIA's director of public policy. "Meanwhile, the European Union is actively recruiting those people and enacting policies that encourage them to settle there."