Hm. In my area (Chattanooga, TN), tech jobs are quite rare, unfortunately, and the local government was outsourcing some of its database personnel when I inquired about it last year. Not sure if it's still the case or not.

Also, tech jobs here pay miserably :-D. Or at least my first one did, and the same goes for my roommate. He does database/web design work for a local dealership for about $24K a year, and works weekends/holidays from home by (continuous) demand. My first DBA job here paid a bit less than that. The prevailing attitude seems to be that computer work isn't hard, since you just sit in a chair all day, so the pay shouldn't be too high. My current employers think differently, thankfully, but I still need to extract my roommate from his barbarian encampment 😛