How Companies Are Preparing For the IT Workforce Exodus

itwbennett writes "If you think there's a glut of contract IT workers now, just wait. 10,000 U.S. baby boomers will turn 65 every day from now until 2030, and at least some of them will want to ease into retirement. This may sound like music to the ears of IT organizations who already would rather hire temporary staff with specialized expertise — especially for working on legacy technologies. 'The contractor ratio, already high in tech, will continue to increase as companies allow retiring staff to work part-time hours or hire them for short-term projects,' says Matthew Ripaldi, senior vice president at IT staffing firm Modis."

Comments

Re:OP or tune it ee

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, if you want to work for India Business Machines or Chinese Info Systems COmpany. Speak much Hindi or Mandarin?

The retirements just mean another faux "shortage" of talent to support more offshoring and H1B programs.

But then, I hear the NSA is hiring...

Glut of IT workers?

[pthisis]

If you think there's a glut of contract IT workers now ...then you lack a basic understanding of labor markets.

Computer Programmers: 3.7%
DB Admins: 1.3%
Network and sysadmins: 3.9%
Network and data analysts: 3.9%
Software devs, application, and systems software: 4.0%

Those are the current unemployment rates for workers in those occupations. It's pretty much the same for all IT occupations; there are few enough workers that companies are having a tough time filling jobs, and even moderately skilled employees aren't having trouble finding jobs.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323936804578229873392511426.html

Re:Glut of IT workers?

[Dr_Barnowl]

Second that ; whenever we try hiring, the standard of the applicants is utter, utter, dross.

They typically exhibit faults like

* Lacing basic reading comprehension

For example, they tender applications for development jobs... when they were applying for testing.

* Apply for every job

When I apply for a job, I read the application and compose a precise strike covering letter, tailor my CV, the full treatment, because there are so few jobs out there that would interest me. These guys cut and paste applications into a huge list of jobs and it shows. Why would I want to hire someone who isn't interested in my position?

* Lack basic English skills

Spelling and grammar mistakes are a no-no. Successful software development is about communication - communicating with the user to get the requirements right, communicating with the computer to implement them. I don't wish to hire someone who displays difficulty communicating with concision in any of their chosen languages. Writing incomprehensible goobledegook in your job application will get it canned. Without wishing to be biased, this applies equally to the many Indian applicants (they outnumber the natives, typically) we receive responses from.

* Being unable to program

You'd think this would deter most folks from applying from programming jobs, but apparently many people have no shame. While I don't expect people to reinvent wheels like ArrayList, I do expect you to know how they are constructed.

* Lacking any kind of initiative

If you're asked a tough logic problem in an interview, even if you're stumped, you don't give up. If you attack it in a way that reveals some kind of thought process going on, I will give you credit for it.

Re:OP or tune it ee

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're in tech now the geezers are finally going to let you move up by retiring.

If you thinks it's the geezers that are holding you back, you should probably look for a job in another field. If anything, geezers are the ones being fired because they make too much.

Re:OP or tune it ee

[symbolset]

Strokes grey beard - tell me more, young AC.

I call bullshit

[eman1961]

First of all, there is no glut right now of competent IT workers. I have lots of buddies (most elderly, so to speak, I'm 52) who have absolutely no shortage of work. I don't see it. I am a contract worker now - bill at a greater rate than I ever have in my life, and have more work than I know what to do with. I turn down 2 out of 3 contracts. I think that people who are not getting IT work need to hone their skills until they have jobs/contracts forced onto them.

I used to work at Microsoft - I never even *came close* to being stack ranked out. I am not saying that no one was ever incorrectly ranked at the bottom, but I never saw it. The people I saw at the bottom end of the stack rank - I could see the point that the managers were making. One dude was competent, but spent *way* too much time goofing off. And while Microsoft is mostly filled with competent people, make no doubt about it, there are plenty of semi-competent people there. There needs to be a system to get rid of the dead weight.

Now granted, I am not lazy. I am versed in OO and functional programming. I have developed many large projects in JavaScript, as well as C#. I have written books, written over 1000 blog posts, recorded over 150 screen-casts, and etc. I took a job writing a large system in JavaScript without knowing the language, then taught myself the language, including the functional programming / lamda / closure aspects in 3 weeks. I was 50 at the time. So don't whine about being old and not having the skills. If you don't have them, then get them. If you have them, then you probably have work. And if you have the skilz and don't have work, then blog / screen-cast, and you will have work in short order.

Re:OP or tune it ee

[AlecC]

As a geezer, one of the main criticisms at my review was that I tend to overload younger staff with too much information. Because I have seen so much before, I can jump on new problems faster. And I am working at what thinks of itself as a leading edge chip design company on the newest products.The company chooses me for the bleeding edge.

Re:OP or tune it ee

[Gr8Apes]

And yet, the faster IT "develops", the more it seems like year x's crop reinvents the wheel, and several years later, the "hot" trend that was the silver bullet either really does have all the same flaws as yesteryear's tech, or brought in some new ones that made it an even worse choice.

The only thing that's developed rather rapidly is hardware, and that train has slowed relative to technology to take advantage of it. Software wise, some new tech has come out, but mostly existing tech has refined itself. Nothing I'd call revolutionary compared to what existed before.