Technology index ranks Nevada 21st in nation

Thursday, July 22, 1999 | 10:09 a.m.

A study using 17 economic indicators to gauge the status of work force technology ranks Nevada 21st among the 50 states.

Nevada ranked first in three categories, but near or at the bottom in three others.

The report, issued today by the politically moderate Progressive Policy Institute think tank, is the first attempt at measuring the performance of states in "the new economy," one of its co-authors, Rob Atkinson, said.

According to the report, Nevada was first in companies with annual sales revenue that have grown 20 percent or more for four straight years as a share of total employment. It's also first in job churning, the number of new start-ups and business failures combined, as a share of all companies in each state.

Nevada also has the most commercial Internet domain names -- the number of ".coms" per firm. The report said that may be a dubious distinction, since the large number "may be attributable to a large number of gambling and pornographic sites."

The state ranked last in the number of managers, professionals and technicians as a share of the total work force.

Nevada also was 47th in technology in schools. The category measures percentage of classrooms wired for the Internet, teachers with technology training and schools with more than 50 percent of teachers having school-based e-mail accounts.