It says much for the huge appetite for talent of the IT industry that a company based in California's Silicon Valley should be looking to West Yorkshire 6,000 miles away for new recruits.

Not only are there not enough suitable job candidates in California to meet the needs of former Keighley businessman Robert Kearney and his business partner David Richards, but the ones there are have also apparently priced themselves out of the market through spiralling wage demands.

So the pair have launched a recruitment drive in West Yorkshire to help them expand their 20-strong workforce to 50 to enable them to meet the expansion needs of their e-commerce company. They say the software they are working on has been used in England by organisations such as the Bradford-based Yorkshire Building Society and the Inland Revenue, so they are hoping to tap the pool of expertise.

It is encouraging to know that this area is considered to have a wealth of high-tech talent. However, we don't want to lose it. Bradford district is keen to develop these new industries. Indeed, there is a pressing need for it to do so to replace the old industries which used to provide the bulk of the jobs.

For the new industries to flourish here, they have to be able to rely on a good supply of computer whizzkids. Bradford is now doing its best to produce people with the required expertise.

Competition from abroad is a reminder that when it comes to attracting and keeping the talent they need, local companies have to contend with the pressures of a global market place.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.