The Tech industry has been on the rise ever since it appeared on the scene in the late 90s. However, for the first time in five years the industry has lost jobs over a twelve month period.

For the first time in half a decade, the U.S. tech industry in 2009 slashed large numbers of skilled workers from its payrolls. The findings, disclosed in a technology trade group’s annual analysis of employment and wage trends in the industry, could slow an overall improvement in the U.S. economy, the group concluded.

Technology companies eliminated 245,600 jobs in 2009, or 4% of the industry’s 5.9 million U.S. workers, according to the latest Cyberstates report released Apr. 28 by TechAmerica, a industry group representing 1,500 companies in electronics, software, and telecommunications. It was the first time the technology industry eliminated jobs since 2004.

Of course, this isn’t because of any decreased importance of the Tech industry’s. It is because of the recession, which has caused Tech jobs to dry up. In fact, the Tech industry has weathered the recession better than almost all other industries.

Innovation is the heart and soul of a decent business model. Those companies which innovate the best are the ones that stay on top for the longest. BusinessWeek has taken the liberty of compiling a list of the 50 Most Innovative Companies in the World in 2010. The make up of the list is pretty interesting:

In the 2010 Bloomberg BusinessWeek annual rankings of Most Innovative Companies, 15 of the Top 50 are Asian—up from just five in 2006. In fact, for the first time since the rankings began in 2005, the majority of corporations in the Top 25 are based outside the U.S. Asia’s newfound confidence is turning up everywhere you look, from wind turbines to high-speed bullet trains, just two of the technologies China is trying to export to the U.S. “We are the most advanced in many fields,” Zheng Jian, director of high-speed rail at China’s railway ministry, told The New York Times in April. “And we are willing to share with the U.S.”

Of course, the top two companies are Apple and Google, in that order. You should check out the rest of the list yourself–it contains quite a few surprising companies from various locations that one would not expect.