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Critical Shortage of IT Workers in Coming Years
Juzzam writes "The Herald Sun reports that IBM and university officals are worried about the increasing demand for IT professionals and the decreasing supply of computer science students. From the article:
'The slope shows an unbelievable decline in computer science majors,' Astrachan said. 'There are smart people no longer even signing up to take our introductory courses. We need to fix it, or there's not going to be a U.S. work force in computer sciences.'"
I am a student in college majoring in the IT field but I am seriously considering changing my major due to the outsourcing and job instability that plagues the IT industry as a whole. So I guess you can count me as another statistic.
>decreasing supply of computer science students
What does that mean? The real worry is not the lack of IT professionals, but rather the lack of keen, young, fresh and still clueless recently graduated computer science graduates to hire for peanuts and milk for all they're worth.
Nobody wants someone with 10 years of experience and a family to support, those people expect benefits and regular working hours! The nerve!
---- Take the Space Quiz!
Its not that simple. The IT business has not shown itself to be very stable over the last few years. Not exactly encouraging as career choice and source of stable income if you have ambitions to get married, buy a house in the burbs etc. I think outsourcing is a factor currently as well. Even most non techies are aware of what has and more importantly what could happen to them should they enter IT. The prospect of suddenly being replaced by an alternative you cannot compete with economically does not engender confidence. If I was leaving school now I have to say I would probably be looking at alternative diciplines as a career choice myself. I doubt the thought of a few quick bucks in an unstable rapidly fluctuating IT market would change that.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
If IBM were so concerned about the number of IT workers, maybe it should become a better employer first.
You see, IBM for the past several years has been on a hiring binge, but with very rare exception, every new hire is brought in as a "supplemental". A supplemental, by IBM's definition, is a temporary position that CAN NOT continue past 18 months. Once your supplemental service is over, you are blacklisted by IBM for another 6 months - no rehire possible.
When I left IBM (near the end of my supplemental "tour of duty"), IBM was in a hiring freeze, there was no way to become a full-time employee, regardless of demand. Oh, and as a supplemental for IBM, the ONLY benefit you are eligible for is the employee stock purchase plan. That's right, no insurance, no 401k or pension, no education assistance, nothing else!
If IBM needs more employees, then they need to stop chewing through their existing stock (and spitting them out) so rapidly.
Ron Gage - Westland, MI
It's all a scam.
Big computer, defense, and, to a lesser extent, manufacturing companies pay shills in academia and "think tanks" to gin up these kinds of studies every couple of years so Congress has some political cover when they increase the H1-B cap. It's not true, and it never has been. The only shortage that ever materialized in those two decades happened during the boom, and that was caused by a huge spike in demand.
The goal here is to make sure there's plenty of hungry technical people around so they don't have to pay them too much.
The fears you highlight are not uncommon, but they are unfounded. Companies from India are not developing very good software. There is a reason outsourcing has not taken over as predicted. And the cultural and distance barriers are make it very unlikely management's 'vision' for a project are translated correctly.
The market is very ripe in my opinion for US developers. The only thing the offshoring option has done is hold wages down a bit for the last three years, but prices in India are going up too.
Basically, if you look at the way they're running things, and the way they're headed, all the grunt work will be done offshore, including programming, but the IP will be owned here in the US.
That's why they're pushing so hard for these laws, it's the very basis of the new economy.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
Now, for a dose of reality, check out this opinion piece over at Ars Technica. It points to a study by a UC Davis professor (who wrote this op-ed piece over at News.com) found out that there was, in fact, no studies showing a shortage of IT workers. Why would both academics and indistry go off on such a chicken-little hissy fit? Money, of course.
What IBM and other tech companies really want is dirt cheap labor, not just sufficient labor. Hence their push to get H1B visas while there is still a fairly high unemployment rate among computer professionals (personally, I know of a *lot* of former colleagues who have left the industry because they couldn't find work). H1B workers have their hands tied, since the second they are no longer employed in the US, they get kicked out. That is a huge stick for a company to be able to use against an employee.
And how does academia benefit from the doom and gloom? Easy. More research grants. More money pumped into computer science departments to "attract new stidents." More territory for people who are more bureacratic empire builders than they are actual educators.
As an Indian grad student here in the US, I have found many of my US classmates to be way ahead of majority of my peers back in India when it comes to algorithmic ability.
Perhaps its got to do with the current job situation where only the people who are truly interested in Computer Science, major in it. So you have students of much higher quality.
Judging from the total disregard for the job market shown by some of my US friends shows that the US still has a very bright future in Computer Science as long as these "anomalies" are around.
These companies have vested interest in outsourcing cheap labour. Don't believe what they say. They just wanna keep salaries low and their bottomlines high. The anomalies are more common than they would have you believe!
The out sourcing trend has several root causes. Every body talks about most of them but I rarely hear one thing that I think is a major reason. Management really does not understand the development process.
I have worked on a number of projects that management dictated large numbers of people. A couple turned out to be super stars, a few were very good, some were capable to do grunt work and 40% drained a lot of time from the other 60%. This has caused many projects I have worked on to be over budget and long delayed. Often missing marketing windows. Yes even as an engineer I think this is important.
Where I work now they are constantly trying to hire only "principle level engineers" for the good of the company. This is crap. Every project needs varying levels of experience for a cost / performance trade off of the engineering and busy work that needs to be done. They also cause projects to be over budget and often late because none of the experienced engineers want to do the crap work.
Now add this to out sourcing. I do believe in the time it takes to write a design document that very carefully outlines every little detail that needs to go into project it could have been coded here anyway. My experience with out sourcing, and this includes India, China and Russia is that every detail is required. That is also my experience with outsourcing in the US. These companies make money by doing the least amount of work for the defined contact. You can not leave even one detail up to a good engineers imagination in these contracts.
Out sourceing has its place but cannot be the answer for everything. Much of it is the mananement solution "du jour". Much of managment is patting itself on the back at the moment but I still think this will change at some point in time.
One thing I hate is the business people in america who state catagorically that outsourcing manufacturing is good for america. As I implied above engineering takes ability and interest. The 40% I mentioned above lacked one or both of the two. Just because engineering was paying well did not mean they could perform. Not all members of our society are capable of high tech and require jobs in manufacturing to provide for their families.
Without projects based in the US there will be no way to screen new graduates for moving up the chain. Trying to entice students in comp sci should be targeted at convincing them there is a future and screening out this who have a chance of creating value for a company.
I have experinced the same thing as a programmer. I was laid-off during the burst and could not get a job because I was overqualified. People would not hire me for 35% less because they figured I would just leave when someone came up to what I am worth.
My solutions was simple, I started my own business until I was able to get a new job. I refuse to accept a full time position that will require me to give up that business and now I have a high paying full time job and a thriving programming business on the side. I suggest for any programmer that they do not sign any IP agreements and tie themselves into one company. Do not put all your eggs in one basket....
I am no longer afraid of the outsourcing issue becasue I have found that many of the major companies are oursourcing but many of the small businesses in your area do not know anyone in India and do not want to deal with someone they cannot see and talk too. There is a very fertile field of work that makes me plenty of money.
My formula does not work for everyone but it is what i have experienced.