Seattle resident Barbara Kempf used to work for Microsoft Encarta. Her editing job there was intermittent, but it paid well and let her put away money for her retirement.

Not any more.

Like hundreds of thousands of other information technology workers--even after the "recession" officially ended in November 2001, Kempf has lost her job. Microsoft let her go on March 8.

Unemployed for more than six months, Kempf's reached the end of her jobless benefits. Now she'll have to start drawing on that retirement nest egg. Last week she interviewed for another job, with the retailer Costco.

"I'm to the point where I'm looking anywhere and everywhere, because I can't afford to be that picky any more" and just interview for jobs in information technology, she says.

Kempf is not alone. A new report by the University of Illinois at Chicago, commissioned by WashTech--a Communications Workers local that concentrates on organizing information technology workers--paints a bleak picture of the industry in the wake of the high-tech boom and bust.

America's High-Tech Bust found that IT firms alone lost 197,000 jobs after the industry, once viewed as the driving engine of the "new economy," collapsed in late 2000. That was the total through the "end" of the Bush recession.

But even after "recovery" supposedly began, high-tech kept shedding jobs: Another 206,000 from then to now. Combined, since late 2000, 18.8 percent of all IT jobs have disappeared.

And that's a conservative estimate, report co-author Nik Theodore adds. It counts just jobs lost in IT firms, and not those in IT areas of non-IT firms. Another report, for an industry trade group, puts overall IT job losses in the millions.

Theodore reported thousands of the former IT workers had to do what Kempf does now: Look for jobs anywhere and everywhere, and not necessarily in their chosen field. That sacrifices the workers' skills, says WashTech President Marcus Courtney.

"How can an economic recovery be declared when there are no new jobs created?" in the field, at least in the U.S., he asks.

"For IT workers, this isn't a jobless recovery, it's a job-loss recovery," Theodore notes.

Kempf says 100 of her former co-workers, at an IT firm that has served libraries for years, were laid off last week. They must start a similar job hunt.

Courtney and Theodore said so many former IT workers had to leave the field due to lack of opportunities for the last 36 months that IT joblessness--once below 2 percent--recently declined, from 5.7 percent earlier this year to 5 percent now.

The report says loss of IT jobs, like industrial job loss, has a ripple effect. "When these middle-class workers lose their jobs, we lose their spending in local economies that would have supported retail and other jobs. The multiplier effect is very high: two-and-a-half or three-and-a-half to one," Theodore said.

Some metro areas are hard hit. The report covered the top seven IT-job metro areas. Since 2000, IT job losses were: Boston (34 percent), San Jose (33 percent), San Francisco (49 percent), Dallas (30 percent), Chicago (26 percent), Seattle (10.8 percent) and metro Washington, D.C. (2.5 percent).

Government policies contribute to the continuing high-tech/IT job loss, the report, Theodore and Courtney add. They include continuation of liberal visa requirements, under the H1-B and L-1 visa programs, for foreign workers, and government tax breaks that encourage creation of high-tech and information technology jobs, overseas.

The jobless U.S. IT workers are noticing that politicians have done little to stem the job loss, Courtney says. IT workers are mostly independent or leaning Republican, polls show. But they also noticed GOP nominee George W. Bush and his party refused to act on the visa issue or stem the export of IT jobs to China, India, Russia and elsewhere.

By contrast, says Courtney, whose parent CWA has endorsed Democratic nominee John F. Kerry, they notice the senator--who is from a high-tech state--proposed yanking tax credits that let firms create jobs abroad, while enhancing credits for those that create jobs at home.

Courtney also proposed requiring employers to give advance notice of IT job losses. And he said the government should extend federal trade adjustment assistance to IT workers who lose their jobs overseas. It's now open only to industrial workers who lose their jobs to imports. He also proposed requiring firms seeking to hire foreign IT workers to first prove there are no U.S. IT workers available--a point the report disproves.

Mark Gruenberg writes for Press Associates, Inc., news service. Used by permission.