Technology industry on firm ground despite slowing economy: 'guarded caution' likely to reign over budgets.

While some segments of the local economy are seeing a downturn, the technology sector is holding steady due in large part to its diversity, industry insiders say.

Joe Budano, president of Xantrex Technology Inc. and chairman of the AeA San Diego Council, said technology companies represent nearly 10 percent of San Diego's civilian work force.

"The growth in our economy is (related) to the terrific diversity we have in our technology clusters," said Budano, noting the resiliency of research and development, telecommunications, electronics and software development.

The high-tech industry in San Diego added 1,500 jobs in 2006, for a total of 106,400 positions, according to the latest metropolitan data from the AeA, a technology trade association.

The largest tech sector in San Diego, research and development and testing labs, had 27,000 jobs in 2006. The second largest, telecommunications services, had 15,800, according to a recent report released by the AeA.

San Diego County continues to be recognized as a high-tech powerhouse. It has an extremely high concentration of technology employees, according to an AeA report. "Cybercities 2008: An Overview of the High-Technology Industry in the Nation's Top 60 Cities" found high-tech firms employed 97 of every 1,000 private sector workers in 2006 in San Diego, ranking it 11th in the nation.

Kevin Carroll, executive director of AeA San Diego Council, agrees that the strength of San Diego's technology sector lives in its diversity.

"All of our eggs are not in one basket," he said.

Carroll said while there may be a bit of a recruitment slowdown, companies are still seeking qualified candidates.

Help Wanted

Pacific Beach-based DefenseWeb Technologies, for example, is hiring for software engineering and sales positions. Douglas Burke, chief executive officer of DefenseWeb, said the company is looking to fill at least eight positions and predicts that technology related to the defense and health care industries will continue to grow. DefenseWeb is a wholly owned subsidiary of Humana Military Healthcare Services Inc.

"In those three industries--technology, defense and health care--we don't see a recession anywhere," Burke said. "We have never had a higher demand to hire people."

Meanwhile, high-tech jobs paid an aver age wage of $92,300 in 2006, according to AeA, or 105 percent more than the average private sector wage of $45,100.

Mike Fuller, an intellectual property attorney with the San Diego office of Knobbe Martens Olson & Bear LLP, said he is seeing slightly fewer patent filings from tech firms.

Fuller said we may see an uptick in patent litigation this year. He added that while technology companies are not yet seeing a downturn in sales, there is caution when it comes to budgets.

"Companies want to monetize the assets they have," said Fuller. "What I anticipate through year end is probably a continuing guarded caution in all of their (patent) filings and all of their budgets. I think that clients are starting to scrutinize more carefully what they file and where."

Fuller said filing patents outside of the United States can be very expensive.