High Technology Employment mnds in Michigan

Govemor William G. Milliken began to move the state in this direction in 198 1 with the establishment of the blue-ribbon High Technology Task Force. Out of this effort came the Centers of Excellence---the Industrial Technology Institute, the Michigan Molecular Institute, and the Molecular Biology Institute- and the venture capital program, which invests in new or emerging high-growth companies offering products and technologies that could help diversify the state's economy. The effort to create high technology jobs continues under Govemor Blanchard with such programs as the Michigan Strategic Fund, which encourages public sector flexibility in addressing the varying financial needs of rapidly changing industries and technologies, and the Michigan Modernization Services and Manufacturing Services, which encourage the development of high tech jobs in the state by assisting small and medium-size manufacturers in the deployment of new technologies and development of human resources and by providing existing firms and prospective companies with development and retention services. Supporters of these efforts claim that technological modernization has been one of the most important factors in rekindling economic growth in Michigan. The purpose of this paper is to report the changes in high tech employment from 1982 to 1988, comparing it to employment in general and examining wage levels. (The influence of the economic development programs described above is not assessed in this paper.) This is the first compilation of such data, and it will be of interest to all observers of the Michigan economic scene, particularly public policy makers and economic development planners. DEFINITIONS High technology industry has many meanings: To state and local economic development planners it means emerging growth industries that may solve the problem of high unemployment; to industry it means the manufacture of new products and new, often labor-saving, production processes; in political circles it is the economic edge that increases the ability to compete in world markets; and in academia and think tanks it refers io industries involving soptusticated research and dcveloprnent (R&D). The definitions used in this analysis come from two sources. The first is High Tech America, a 1986 book by Ann Markusen, Peter Hall, and Amy Glasmeier, in which the term has an occupational basis: High technology industries are defined as manufacturing operations in which the proportion of engineers, engineering technicians, computer scientists, life scientists (as in biology and medicine), and mathe- maticians exceeds the average for all manufacturing firms. Conceptually, this definition reflects the