“The hottest high-tech recruiting markets in the United States in 2004 have shifted from the historic job-creation engines of Silicon Valley and Boston to New York City and Washington, according to Dice Inc., an online job site for technology careers.

“Washington is the hottest technology market in the nation right now,” with the federal government recruiting heavily for national defense and homeland security IT projects, said Scot Melland, president and CEO of Dice, based in New York.

But New York has risen to the top of the job-posting list because its diverse IT job market is being led by the financial services industry, which is recovering from the dual blows of an economic recession and the 9/11 attacks, Melland said.”