High-Tech Looks to Bolster Sector

Friday, January 5th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) â€” President-elect Bush told Americans to hold onto their tech stocks Thursday, despite the slumping economy and the workforce shortage wearing on the once-gleaming high-technology industry.

In Bush's second day of intensive economic talks, he lent an ear to a host of high-tech executives, discussing education reform, immigration and trade policies as ways to bolster the ailing sector.

In the jittery new economy, the president-elect urged investors to stay true to old-economic rules such as long-term investing.

``People that have invested in this industry are, in the long term, going to realize good gains on the money they've invested,'' Bush said. ``We're concerned about the short-term economic news, but long term I'm optimistic.''

Then he retreated from advising investors.

``I'd get them to get somebody more qualified than me to pick stocks,'' Bush joked.

Concerns about education, especially math and science, topped Bush's discussion with the 17 high-tech leaders who say school reform is crucial in meeting workforce demands to sustain growth in high-tech industry.

``We need to make sure that, in the long term, that our work force is able to take advantage of the fantastic opportunities that these folks will be able to provide for them,'' Bush said.

Later, John Chambers, chief executive officer of Cisco, told reporters that ``the availability of a skilled work force'' was a problem all the corporate officials shared.

Unless the United States does a better job of educating its workers ``jobs will move'' to other countries. In particular, he mentioned India, Jordan and Britain, all which have fast-growing high-tech sectors.

``Education and the Internet are the two equalizers in life.''

Carly Fiorina of Hewlett Packard said schools need to do a better job educating women and minorities, most of which don't finish math and science programs they start.

The corporate executives did not give specifics about how Bush planned to boost consumer confidence in ailing sectors of the economy or which reforms would be implemented to address the labor shortage.

Michael Dell, chief operating officer of Dell Computer, based near Austin, said that Bush pledged ``to keep an open dialogue'' going with the high-tech community. He said that Bush's proposal for a $1.3 trillion, ten-year tax cut was proposed, but that it wasn't the main topic on the agenda.

For Dell's part, its customers were ``seeing a slowdown in a pretty dramatic fashion.''

Bush also expressed his support of free trade as a necessary tool for competing in the struggle for global markets.

``Our nation should not be afraid of free trade,'' Bush said, adding that the United States is prepared to do business with a variety of companies and governments.

Bush advisers had talked about whether setting up a special White House office to oversee high-tech issues, but no decisions have been made on the office or who would lead it.

The session was also attended by officials of IBM, Intel Corp. and Applied Materials.