NEW ORLEANS -- The Louisiana Technology Council conducted a survey to find out how many people in theNew Orleans area hold what are called IT, or information technology jobs. Even they were surprised by the results.

The ten-parish Greater New Orleans area survey of IT jobs found there are about 37,000 workers holding down the high-tech positions. This area is not known for IT skills, so even the president of the technology council was surprised by the data.

But the surveyors found many of the information technology workers are holding jobs in areas not counted as IT, such as in banking, government, education, transportation and healthcare.

But Mark Lewis of the Louisiana Technology Council said that knowing there are many highly skilled employees already in the area can help economic development.

"We're gonna use this data for economic development purposes,” Lewis said. “So if someone is trying to locate here, we now have proof to show them, hey, if you're an IF company, and you want to draw upon the strength that we have in the IT industry, that gives us added value in attracting businesses here.

“We haven't had that leg up, so to speak.”

The 37,000 information technology workers represent about 7 percent of the area's work-force, but those holding the jobs are generally college educated. The jobs are high paying and not expected to be significantly impacted by the current recession.