IT Talent Shortage Debate
IT Talent Shortage Debate
Date: Wednesday, January 23, 2008 10:18 PM
<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1810 -- 1/23/2008 >>>>>
Informationweek published a good series of articles on the debate about IT
worker shortages. Dr. Ron Hira's article "No, The Tech Skills Shortage Doesn't
Exist" is particularly good. Overall the arguments on both sides are debated
skillfully, except for one moronic statement by Chris Murphy:
But our recent survey found something surprising: Business
technology managers and staffers hold very similar views on
whether there's a shortage. About two-thirds of both groups
see some signs of a shortage.
I almost was willing to give Murphy the benefit of the doubt because he
included "staffers" with managers, which at first blush seems to balance the
survey out. The problem is that the staffers are just a bunch of HR toadies.
How's that for a scientific survey?
The most prevalent view--by 45% of managers and 40% of staff--is
that there's a shortage only in certain IT specialties and some
geographies. Another quarter of staffers and 29% of managers see
a shortage in many IT areas, according to our survey of 893
managers and 270 staffers involved in the IT hiring process.
Articles Used
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/01/hard_facts_to_f.html
Hard Facts To Fuel The IT Talent Shortage Debate
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205601556
No, The Tech Skills Shortage Doesn't Exist
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205601557
Yes, The Tech Skills Shortage Is Real
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205601558
Majority Of Staff And Managers See Some Sign Of IT Talent Shortage
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/01/hard_facts_to_f.html
Hard Facts To Fuel The IT Talent Shortage Debate
Posted by Chris Murphy, Jan 12, 2008 09:13 AM
We've got a great debate posted with two top researchers over whether there's
a U.S. IT talent shortage. If you're keen on fear-mongering and histrionics,
this package isn't for you. If you want two serious scholars making succinct
arguments backed up with facts, read on.
Here are excerpts from the two professors' articles.
Professor Ron Hira acknowledges the IT job market's been OK, but he contends
there's no shortage. He offers a risk-benefit analysis for U.S. IT workers --
and concludes that the threats, like the huge workforces U.S.
tech firms are building abroad, aren't offset by relatively modest pay raises.
In addition, the risk of technological obsolescence and age discrimination
are higher in IT relative to other professions. How many physicians or
pharmacists become obsolete at age 40? Put in this context, it s hard to
believe that the very modest wage gains of the past few years balance the
increases in IT employee risk.
Professor Jerry Luftman sees a critical IT talent shortage and contends it
will only get worse as baby boomers retire. And he laments the lack of action
that he says is causing a "skills famine" across science, tech, engineering,
and math:
U.S. IT executives have reported their concerns about the talent shortage
of qualified American job seekers, and they have been largely ignored. As far
back as 1998, the Society for Information Management (SIM) stated that
educational institutions, organizations, and government must "take decisive
action now" to address the shortage of skilled IT pros. Nine years down the
road, IT leaders still report that their greatest challenge is recruiting the
right IT people and then developing and retaining them.
A third piece in our package tries to assess what you think, based on a survey
of more than 1,000 people involved in the tech hiring process. The
conclusion:
The most prevalent view -- by 45% of managers and 40% of staff -- is that
there's a shortage only in certain IT specialties and some geographies.
Another quarter of staffers and 29% of managers see a shortage in many IT
areas. ... Twenty-three percent of managers and 29% of staffers say there's no
U.S. shortage.
The debate over whether there's a U.S. tech talent shortage will likely
intensify this year if there's an economic slowdown, even if it doesn't take
the same grim jobs toll it did earlier this decade. We hoped by giving two of
the top researchers in the field a platform to discuss the topic, it would
bring some fresh thinking and hard data to the topic. Let us know how we did,
and what you think.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205601556
No, The Tech Skills Shortage Doesn't Exist
Employers game the system and misrepresent the key market indicators.
Jan. 12, 2008
Employers claim there is a severe shortage of IT workers in the United States.
Listen in on any klatch of CIOs, and the conversation inevitably turns to
their difficulties finding talent. Microsoft's Bill Gates, Intel's Craig
Barrett, and other captains of tech industry argue that the situation has
reached crisis proportions.
But moving beyond anecdotal impressions and vested interests, the employment
and economic data paint another picture--one in which the IT labor market is
clearing and none of the indicators demonstrates a systemic shortage. While
exceptional talent or skills in emerging technologies will always, by
definition, be in short supply, the most relevant market indicators--wages and
employee risk--clearly show there's no broad-based scarcity of U.S. IT
workers. In their zeal to enlist government help to expand the supply of tech
workers through foreign guest worker programs, employers are misrepresenting
IT labor market conditions.
InformationWeek Reports
IS THERE A TECH TALENT SHORTAGE?
A key indicator of tightness in any labor market is wages--more specifically,
whether wages are rising much faster than the norm. IT worker wages grew by a
modest 2.9% in constant dollar terms from 2003 to 2005, according to
Department of Labor data compiled by the Commission on Professionals in
Science & Technology (CPST). This increase is indeed greater than the average
0.6% growth for all professional occupations, but the gains for IT workers
were hardly robust and don't indicate any significant scarcity. More recently,
we've seen some growth in the wages for newly minted bachelor's degree
computer scientists, according to the National Association for Colleges &
Employers. Salaries for those entry-level jobs rose from $50,744 in 2006 to
$53,051 in 2007, an increase of 4.5%. But those gains were almost completely
gobbled up by inflation, which ran about 4.3% in 2007.
Another factor in considering the relative health of the IT job market is the
level of risk employees face. As any investor will tell you, riskier
investments should have the higher potential payoffs. It's no different with
careers. While there are no formal measures of the risk and uncertainty of IT
careers, it's obvious that they have soared over the past few years. The train
wreck of 2002-2004 in the IT labor market derailed the careers of many
professionals; some tech pros haven't come back.
Modest wage gains don't balance the rise in employee risk.
---Ron Hira, Rochester Institute of Technology, Economic Policy Institute
Meantime, employer norms have shifted radically. Long gone are the days when
IBM never laid off a worker. Nowadays, companies don't think twice about
shipping IT work overseas or bringing in lower-cost foreign workers to replace
U.S. employees, and even asking American workers to train their replacements.
Intel's Barrett writes an op-ed piece about the shortage of U.S. workers even
when his own company is in the process of major layoffs, shedding 14% of its
workforce over the past two years.
In addition, the risk of technological obsolescence and age discrimination are
higher in IT relative to other professions. How many physicians or pharmacists
become obsolete at age 40? Put in this context, it's hard to believe that the
very modest wage gains of the past few years balance the increases in IT
employee risk.
The consequences of this new equilibrium play out most prominently in career
choices for those attending college. Enrollment of undergraduate computer
science majors in major U.S. colleges and universities has plummeted an
astounding 40% over the past four years, according to a survey by the
Computing Research Association. Many blame a lack of interest in the tech
field among young people, or our failing K-12 education system. But the most
likely explanation is that students, using an array of information at their
disposal, including advice from relatives in the field, have decided that IT
isn't as attractive an option as it once was.
SHRINKING EXPECTATIONS
More than any other indicator, student choice is an excellent pulse on the
outlook for the U.S. IT labor market. The good news is that enrollments have
stabilized, perhaps in reaction to the bottoming out of the tech recession.
Even so, shrinking expectations of the size of the IT labor market are
supported by the lackluster growth over the past few years, as well as by the
future growth forecast by the Department of Labor. IT employment was slightly
more than 3 million in 2006, up 2.2% from 2004, but those gains lagged the
overall U.S. employment growth of 3.7% over the same period, according to
CPST. Meantime, the employment outlook continues to weaken.
In 2000, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projected that the United States would
have 4,894,000 IT jobs by 2010. Since then, the bureau has consistently
ratcheted down its forecasts, with the most recent projecting 3,522,000 IT
jobs in 2010. I don't advocate using these forecasts as destiny, since the
bureau has no way of accounting for important factors that will affect IT
labor growth, whether it's on the downside (offshoring) or upside
(technological breakthroughs). But it's one more important indicator of IT job
market trends.
The average unemployment rate for IT occupations in 2007 was 2%, according to
Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers released earlier this month, the same rate
as for professional occupations as a whole. This compares favorably with the
record high unemployment rates for IT workers just a few years ago. In 2003
the unemployment rate in IT was 5.5%, compared with 3.2% for all professional
occupations.
We must take into account, however, that many of the IT workers laid off
between 2002 and 2004, but who never made it back into the profession, aren't
counted in the unemployment rolls. If an IT worker became a clerk at Home
Depot or dropped out of the labor market, then he's no longer counted.
And the surveys don't pick up underemployed workers.
IMPORTATION OF WORKERS
Some have pointed to the run on H-1B visas as an indicator of strong U.S.
demand for IT labor. For example, in 2007 the base cap of 65,000 visas, for
those workers holding no more than a bachelor's degree or having equivalent
experience, was exhausted on the first day petitions were accepted for fiscal
year 2008 by the Citizenship and Immigration Services.
But this self-serving explanation ignores the real reasons for the voracious
appetite for foreign workers: their lower cost and the offshore outsourcing
business model. With help from Congress, employers and university lobbyists
have designed large loopholes into the H-1B program, letting employers legally
pay below-market wages to those workers. Also, the H-1B and L-1 guest worker
visa programs are vital to the offshore outsourcing business model, as U.S.
companies rotate employees for knowledge transfer and to shift work overseas.
So vital are these visas to the offshore outsourcing industry that India's
commerce minister, Kamal Nath, calls the H-1B the "outsourcing visa" and has
demanded that the United States increase the cap.
chart: Top paying jobs for 2006 grads
We see both of these trends manifested in the wages of new H-1B computer
workers, which dropped 16% from $59,708 in 2002 to $50,000 by 2005 in constant
2005 dollars. If wage gains have been modest under the current H-1B cap of
85,000 (plus exemptions for university and nonprofit research employers), what
will happen to wages if the massive expansion being pushed by Compete America,
the deep-pocketed lobbying coalition of industry and universities, were to be
passed? The coalition has lobbied for uncapped exemptions for large categories
of workers.
As if something out of Thank You For Smoking, the Hollywood spoof on lobbying,
tech employers have repeatedly misrepresented the state of the U.S. IT labor
market, saying that their use of guest worker programs prevents offshoring by
redressing domestic shortages. Employers say they hire foreign guest workers
only as a last resort, when they can't find U.S.
workers. But their real motivations for a cap increase are quite different.
The public face of Compete America has been Robert Hoffman, a VP for
government affairs at Oracle. In interviews, Hoffman never mentions that
Oracle owns offshore IT outsourcing vendor I-flex, a top 20 user of H-1B
visas. Like other offshore outsourcing firms, I-flex rotates its foreign
workers into and out of the United States under H-1B and L-1 visas and hires
very few Americans. As an I-flex exec told National Public Radio's Marketplace
program, "Most of the people coming through us have no intention of settling
in the United States. These are folks who are coming here to do a job, have
fun while they can in the United States, and then use this experience in
different parts of the world." Oracle isn't the only company with an offshore
outsourcing arm. EDS owns Mphasis and Computer Sciences Corp. recently
purchased Covansys.
To make matters worse, major news publications have falsely claimed that the
H-1B program requires employers to demonstrate there's a shortage of U.S.
workers before hiring an H-1B worker. The Department of Labor's 2006 Strategic
Plan puts it bluntly: "H-1B workers may be hired even when a qualified U.S.
worker wants the job, and a U.S. worker can be displaced from the job in favor
of the foreign worker."
CONSIDER OBJECTIVE DATA
Every major HR department benchmarks the labor market with objective data,
such as offer acceptance rates (the likelihood a candidate who's offered a job
accepts), signing bonuses, days jobs go unfilled, and wage increases.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported in 2005 that Microsoft's offer
acceptance rates were an astoundingly high 90%-plus. A rate greater than 50%
is considered a sign that employers are facing little competition for talent.
Duke University's Vivek Wadhwa took my advice to ask for this kind of hard
data when he designed a study to determine whether there was a shortage of
engineers. He found no such shortage in the United States. Another recent
study, by Hal Salzman of the Urban Institute and Lindsay Lowell of Georgetown
University, drew a similar conclusion.
Many of the indicators cited above are at the macro level, but there isn't a
single IT labor market. Instead, diverse labor markets vary by geography,
skill set, experience, and other factors. And this is where we need a much
more nuanced discussion of what is really in demand and what is available.
Based on the indicators I've cited, my judgment is that the U.S. IT labor
market overall is doing OK, for now. We're seeing modest wage growth and
indications that college enrollments in tech-related programs have bottomed
out. There's no shortage of supply, but there are many looming threats to the
domestic workforce as firms build huge labor capacity overseas.
Accenture passed a milestone in August, with more employees in India
(35,000) than in any other country. IBM will have 100,000 workers in India by
2010, rivaling its U.S. head count. During the next tech recession, those
companies will downsize in Boston before Bangalore.
chart: Jobless rates in IT vs. other occupations.
What drove us out of the tech labor recession of the early 1990s was the mass
move to client-server computing, the widespread corporate adoption of ERP
software, the move to object-oriented programming, and, of course, the
Internet. How much of future tech breakthroughs will be filled by low-cost
foreign labor versus U.S. labor remains to be seen.
We must move beyond the "he said, she said" op-ed analyses to a cooperative
dialogue among the various interest groups: employers, university
administrators, and worker groups. Employers have a strong interest in
claiming there are worker shortages because it provides them with public
relations cover for outsourcing, it induces more people to enter the field, it
justifies flooding the market with lower-cost foreign workers, and it gets
additional government dollars thrown at the so-called problem.
Universities overhired computer science, IT, and MIS faculty during the boom
times and thus have a strong incentive to present the rosiest picture possible
to attract new students. And, of course, incumbent workers have an interest in
keeping supply low.
It's time to break this logjam with some cold, hard facts and sound judgment.
Dr. Ron Hira is an assistant professor of public policy at Rochester Institute
of Technology, where he specializes in engineering workforce issues and high-
skill immigration. He's a past chairman of IEEE-USA's Career & Workforce
Policy Committee, a research fellow at the Economic Policy Institute, and co-
author of the book Outsourcing America (AMACOM, 2005)..
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http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205601557
Yes, The Tech Skills Shortage Is Real
The IT skills famine plaguing the United States is only going to get worse.
Jan. 12, 2008
URL:
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205601557
The demand for IT skills has become ubiquitous across every industry globally.
The market for IT professionals is strong and is still the fastest-growing
sector in the U.S. economy, with more than a million new jobs projected to be
added between 2004 and 2014. Five of the 30 occupations projected by the U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics to grow the fastest by 2016 are IT-related, led by
network and data communications analysts, software engineers, and systems
analysts.
The growth in IT-related positions is driven by new opportunities to leverage
technology in the organization, and by businesses recognizing the impact that
IT can have on revenue. Another important factor contributing to the growth in
demand for IT talent is beginning to appear in news
headlines: "By 2010, 40% of the U.S. workforce is set to retire." The Bureau
of Labor Statistics predicts that in 2010, there will be 52% more people in
the 55-to-64 age bracket than there were in that age group in 2000.
Organizations will face significant knowledge loss because of retirements over
the coming decade.
InformationWeek Reports
IS THERE A TECH TALENT SHORTAGE?
Survey Results:
Is There A Tech Talent Shortage
Take Our Poll:
What's your take on the IT talent shortage?
Join the discussion in our forums
But is there an IT talent shortage? Yes. Skilled IT professionals are scarce
already, and the short supply is stressing organizational growth plans. Add to
this the impending baby boomer retirement bubble, and the situation worsens.
As 70 million baby boomers exit the workforce in the next 15 years, only 40
million people will enter the workforce. McKinsey & Co. predicts that over the
next three decades the demand for experienced IT professionals between the
ages of 35 and 45 will increase by 25%, while the supply will decrease by 15%.
U.S. IT executives have reported their concerns about the talent shortage of
qualified American job seekers, and they have been largely ignored. As far
back as 1998, the Society for Information Management (SIM) stated that
educational institutions, organizations, and government must "take decisive
action now" to address the shortage of skilled IT pros. Nine years down the
road, IT leaders still report that their greatest challenge is recruiting the
right IT people and then developing and retaining them. In a 2007 SIM survey
of 130 senior IT execs, 51% cited "attract, develop, and retain IT
professionals" as a top concern, more than any other factor.
Americans don't appear to be rushing to gain the IT-related skills that
organizations are looking for. The National Center for Education finds that
only 13% of graduate degrees awarded in the United States are science degrees.
Undergraduate enrollments in computer science between 2001 and
2006 dropped 40%. Educators in K-12 school systems have reported declines in
math and science competence in their graduates. Close to a third of all
teenagers drop out before they graduate from high school. Public school
teachers and counselors are unable to communicate the opportunities available
in IT. Parents aren't encouraging children to get into the IT field because of
the dot-com failures and inaccurate media reports about all IT-related jobs
going to India. Children are left disinclined to pursue an IT career.
Students, parents, and counselors don't recognize IT career potential
-- Jerry Luftman, Stevens Institute of Technology, Society for Information
Management Nearly 70% of middle school teachers lack education and
certification in mathematics, let alone computer and business skills, the
National Center for Education finds.
Some suggest that organizations should leverage the talent of foreign students
being educated in the United States. However, that pipeline's getting weaker,
too. In 2007, American colleges and universities received 27% fewer graduate
applications from international students than in 2003.
F-1 visas issued to international students fell 10% between 2001 and 2005.
All of these factors are contributing to a famine in IT-related skills in the
U.S. marketplace.
Also, because of quotas, U.S. organizations haven't been able to bring skilled
foreign IT professionals on temporary visas and green cards into the country.
In a significant move, the European Union is pushing to provide "blue cards"
aimed at attracting foreign-born IT pros to combat the shortage of tech talent
in that region. If successfully implemented, the blue cards would apply in all
27 EU member states, increasing their economic competitiveness.
OUTSOURCING ISN'T THE ANSWER
The Society for Information Management, in its continuing concern about the IT
workforce, recently sponsored a survey of top IT management to determine the
skills and capabilities they want to hire and develop within their
organizations, and what they would obtain through service providers. The
results indicate that while some IT skills in the purely technical areas
(e.g., programming) will be obtained through sourcing from service providers,
employers still have a strong need for IT professionals who have a combination
of technical and business-related skills--such as business and industry
knowledge and project management and communications skills. In addition, these
IT executives expressed a concern that such individuals are in short supply.
Overall, while very large organizations (more than $3 billion in revenue) and
medium-sized organizations ($500 million to $3 billion) are both increasing
the amount of work they send to service providers, companies with less than
$500 million in revenue are increasing their in-house IT staffs more than
increasing their outsourcing activities. Since such businesses make up 99% of
U.S. businesses (according to the U.S. Small Business Administration in 2006),
this is a significant source of jobs.
chart: Where the IT jobs are?
What this research and other projects that have been carried out are saying is
that the market for individuals with IT-related skills is growing. The growth
is in IT organizations within client companies that buy IT products and
sourcing services, and at IT service providers, domestically and globally.
YOUTH MOVEMENT
The challenge is motivating and educating young emerging workers--as well as
their parents and career counselors--to recognize the IT career potential so
they'll seek IT-related positions.
The United States faces a challenge in the global economy. Many countries in
Asia and Europe are more successful at educating and training their upcoming
workforce in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) skills that
are being demanded by the marketplace and, as a result, are competing with the
United States in providing talent in the IT arena. In math literacy, the
United States ranked 24th out of 29 nations in the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development. Universities in the United States should continue
to augment these science, technology, engineering, and math skills along with
the skills being demanded by employers--such as business, industry,
communications--to ensure that these candidates are prepared for the
challenges and opportunities that await them.
IT and innovation have kept the U.S. economy a leader in the global
marketplace. For that to continue, the key stakeholders in the United States
must work together to revitalize the appropriate pipeline of candidates. Who
are the key stakeholders? Private industry, educational systems at all levels,
and government agencies all have important roles to play in solving the skills
famine. It's imperative to reverse the negative perceptions that students,
parents, and guidance counselors have developed because of the dot-com
disaster and the subsequent inaccurate fear that all technology-related jobs
would move offshore. A basic grounding in science, math, technology, business,
and communications must be ensured beginning at the K-12 level.
In the past, the United States inspired young people to get into STEM
education with a national vision: to put a man on the moon. This national
mandate worked beyond anyone's expectations and illustrates how a shared
vision can drive a desired outcome. We have no analogous vision today to
inspire the youth in the United States.
This is why all the stakeholders must work together to derive a plan to inform
students about the opportunities that a career in IT can have. A few of the
major players in the field, specifically IBM and Microsoft along with SIM, are
investing in programs to this end. They're working at the high school and
college levels to bring excitement into the process of letting young people
know about the IT opportunities. Some organizations have begun mentoring
programs in colleges, where senior IT professionals work with students to
generate enthusiasm.
chart: Projected increases between 2006 and 2016 These have been isolated
efforts and there is a need to bring these together, grow the programs, and
reach out to more students and regions.
Government must also realize the impact of the shortage of IT skilled labor
and work toward providing incentives, supporting scholarships, and
broadcasting the need for people in IT-related careers. Government and
academia must commit to educating a new generation of mathematically,
scientifically, and business-adept Americans. Other government programs can be
directed at increasing funding for research and development and working with
the private sector and universities to increase the number of these graduates.
The downward trend in American university students enrolling in computer
science and IT-related programs has leveled and is beginning to slowly
reverse. This is good news, but it's not happening quickly enough to overcome
the combination of the current thin pipeline and the impending baby boomer
retirement.
Increased sourcing to offshore locations is becoming a necessity for many
organizations as they fail to find the talent they need within the United
States. For this to movement change, the key stakeholders (i.e., business,
academia, vendors, government, and advisers) must begin active and aggressive
programs to bring people back into the IT career track. There is a clearly a
shortage of IT talent for the foreseeable future--unless we make a concerted
effort to work together to ensure that we quickly turn it around.
-- with Rajkumar Kempaiah and Christine Bullen
Dr. Jerry Luftman is a professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology, where
he's also executive director of Stevens' graduate information systems
programs. Before that, he spent 22 years with IBM. He's also a VP at the
Society for Information Management.
Illustration by Brian Stauffer
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http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205601558
Majority Of Staff And Managers See Some Sign Of IT Talent Shortage
But most of those only see it certain specialties or geographic areas.
By Chris Murphy, InformationWeek
Jan. 12, 2008
There's a raw, emotional split in the IT community over whether there's truly
a U.S. shortage of tech talent. Some see the talent "shortage" as an idea
cooked up by management to justify more visas for low-wage foreign workers.
But our recent survey found something surprising: Business technology managers
and staffers hold very similar views on whether there's a shortage. About two-
thirds of both groups see some signs of a shortage.
The most prevalent view--by 45% of managers and 40% of staff--is that there's
a shortage only in certain IT specialties and some geographies.
Another quarter of staffers and 29% of managers see a shortage in many IT
areas, according to our survey of 893 managers and 270 staffers involved in
the IT hiring process. Twenty-three percent of managers and 29% of staffers
say there's no U.S. shortage.
InformationWeek Reports
IS THERE A TECH TALENT SHORTAGE?
Survey Results:
Is There A Tech Talent Shortage
Take Our Poll:
What's your take on the IT talent shortage?
Join the discussion in our forums
The question becomes volatile in the context of offshore outsourcing and H-1B
visas for foreign workers. Offshoring critics hear talk of a shortage--or even
just healthy employment--and they fear IT vendors will use that as leverage to
import more foreign workers into the United States.
2007 was indeed a very good year for IT job creation, according to the most
recent numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics--the best year ever, in
fact, in the seven years the bureau has been using its current IT job
categories to survey workers. The eight IT job segments added more than
300,000 jobs last year, with average quarterly employment topping 3.76 million
last year, up from 3.46 million at the end of 2006. Quarterly unemployment for
those categories averaged 2% in 2007, exactly the same as for the larger
professional and management employment category. Software engineers and
computer scientists/system analysts make up 45% of the IT workforce.
Still, IT pros remain unsure of the profession's future. Just 55% of staffers
who responded to our survey say they believe there are more career
opportunities today than when they entered the profession, while 59% of
managers think that's the case. Sixty percent of staffers and 62% of managers
believe the United States is losing its leadership position in IT.
Yet a healthy majority would recommend an IT career to a child or other family
member--74% of staffers and 71% of managers.
One 16-year IT veteran, a director supporting engineering applications at a
major electronics company, says IT's not much different from most career
choices--it depends on the company. A company that's growing, adding new
applications, and building new systems is going to provide an exciting track
for a young person starting a career. One in belt-tightening, do-more-with-
less mode will make it tough. He sees a talent shortage in his specialized
area, supporting highly technical engineering applications, because it's hard
to find experienced people either in the United States or abroad, and it's not
a growth area that attracts entry-level people. It's "more of a quality
shortage than in actual head count," he says.
chart: Is there a shortage of IT talent in the US today?
The IT pros we surveyed give U.S. colleges faint praise for preparing students
with the right skill sets. Just 9% say they do, 54% say they "mostly" do but
are lacking in some areas, while 37% say they're either lacking in many areas
or "not even close." Based on the number of survey comments criticizing
employer training, we also should have asked about that. A typical comment,
from a business continuity manager: "I have seen a reluctance of IT shops to
train or cross-train applicants or staff to fill them. [The attitude of some
companies is] if we can't find the perfect fit employee, then we have an
excuse to go offshore to fill the position."
U.S. IT workers are split evenly over the coming baby boomer retirement wave,
with managers slightly more worried than staff. Managers split exactly 50-50,
while 42% of staff expect a shortage. Says one survey
respondent: "Most of the retiring baby boomers are not really ready to retire,
so you will see about 40% of that workforce continue to work well into their
70s ... at their office in their homes or in a nearby office."
There's plenty of uncertainty heading into 2008. Will healthy IT job growth
continue? If there's an economic slowdown, will IT be severely cut, as it was
during the last recession? One thing's likely: IT pros are likely to remain
sharply divided over the answers.
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