Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2005 22:31:52 -0700 From: Norm Matloff <matloff@cs.ucdavis.edu> To: Norm Matloff <matloff@laura.cs.ucdavis.edu> Subject: "looming shortage of managers" To: H-1B/L-1/offshoring e-newsletter Boy, how times have changed in IT. In the late 1990s, the current hot skill sets seemed to change every six months--Java, XML, TCP/IP, etc. But they were always technical skills. I've mentioned that the effects of globalization (offshoring, H-1B) have been to switch demand away from the technical jobs to semitechnical jobs or nontechnical "talking" jobs, and to jobs which normally don't require a CS degree. This was quantified in the July 25 issue of Computerworld. The top four jobs were all of the system administration/technician sort. (And the highest among development job skills was, of all things, Visual BASIC.) The enclosed article illustrates that further. For example, it says: * Zweig is part of a growing number of I.T. leaders who are concerned it * will be increasingly difficult to find people with hot skills such as * project management. Project management is a "hot skill"? The notion would have seemed ridiculous in 1998. How could any self-respecting engineer take pride in a "soft" skill like that, or expect to be in demand by employers? If you didn't have work experience in a red meat skill like Java or XML, you could forget about getting a job. And this: * Gartner estimates six out of 10 corporate I.T. professionals will * assume business-facing roles by 2010. In other words, it again says that IT is becoming a "talking" job, not a technical one. But the article really misses the point when it refers to the plummeting of CS university enrollment in the last few years. It claims that this will mean there won't be enough of a pipeline into those project management jobs. That's completely wrong. The project management jobs have to be filled by people who have experience with the technology, even if they don't do any technical work themselves. Since the number of technical jobs open to Americans will be (and already has become) small, we are not producing enough Americans with technical experience to fill those project management positions. THAT is where the pipeline problem occurs. To put it another way, the universities could produce tons of CS graduates, but since almost none of them would get technical jobs, there still wouldn't be the people to climb up the ladder to the project management positions. As I've also pointed out before, the same point applies to innovation. Innovation comes serendipitously, while people are working in the technical jobs. If those jobs aren't here, then innovation won't occur here either. Again, the universities could produce tons of CS grads and it wouldn't help a bit. Norm http://www.toptechnews.com/story.xhtml?story_id=37770 I.T. Staff Shortage Looming August 15, 2005 12:55PM The steep decline in I.T. students is at least partly attributable to a largely unseen but persuasive factor: parents. Just a few years ago, technology was a glamorous destination, but thanks to its role in the dot-corn boom, many now see it as a dead letter. The perception is that all the good I.T. jobs are in India and China. _________________________________________________________________ Last year, Phil Zweig needed to fill two critical roles in his I.T. organization at Northwestern Mutual -- one in identity management and one in mainframe system support. Zweig, vice president of I.T. for the Milwaukee firm, began to get antsy when those slots had not been filled in the usual timeframe of two to three months. "It was taking us about five to six-plus months, double what I would like to see," he says. In itself, that might not seem like a big deal, but Zweig has his eye on the bigger picture. As vice president of advocacy and communities of interest for the Society for Information Management (SIM), he heads up a research project that is examining the combined effects of radically dropping enrollment in I.T. programs at the undergraduate level and the first wave of baby boomer retirements. "Between the retirements that are coming and the reduction in computer science students, we're in a very difficult position," he says. Zweig is part of a growing number of I.T. leaders who are concerned it will be increasingly difficult to find people with hot skills such as project management. Without enough future I.T. professionals in the pipeline -- and with thousands of older employees leaving the workforce -- the U.S. could be left high and dry when it comes to technology innovation. And that could sap economic growth. Gartner estimates six out of 10 corporate I.T. professionals will assume business-facing roles by 2010. By that same year, I.T. organizations at midsize and large companies will be at least one-third smaller than they were in 2000, according to Gartner. In five years. 10 percent to 15 percent of I.T. professionals will drop out of the field altogether, the firm forecasts. These predictions portend a clouded future for an important sector of the U.S. economy. "Where will the next wave of technology creation come from? Will the U.S. be able to sustain its leadership? What will happen if there's no one left to hire here?" says Nancy Markle, past president of SIM and a current board member. Markle was previously a CIO at Arthur Anderson. Declining Enrollment With the pain of the recession's widespread layoffs Latest News about layoffs barely in the past, it is hard to believe an I.T. worker shortage could again be just around the corner. Five years ago, the business and technical press were full of stories about the lack of skilled I.T. professionals. The topic was a perennial favorite, right up until the economy tanked. But the signposts to a coming I.T. worker shortage are rooted in fact. The fact, for example, that undergraduate enrollment in computer science programs has dropped 7 percent for each of the last two years, according to the Taulbee Survey of the Computing Research Association (CRA). Further up the pipeline, the number of students who declared their major in computer science has declined for the past four years and is now 39 percent lower than in the fall of 2000. Kate Kaiser, associate professor at Milwaukee's Marquette University, teaches a basic computer science course, among others. "In 2001, this class had two sections and 48 students. This fall I had one section and 12 students," says Kaiser, who is conducting interviews with I.T. managers as part of the SIM research project. "It's too bad -- I think everyone should love this field," she says. The steep decline in I.T. students is at least partly attributable to a largely unseen but persuasive factor: parents. Just a few years ago, technology was a glamorous destination, but thanks to its role in the dot-corn boom, many now see it as a dead letter. The perception is that all the good I.T. jobs are in India and China, and they're not coming back any time soon. "Parents influence the field their kids go into. Right now, they view I.T. as too unstable," says Diane Berry managing vice president for Gartner's human capital management practice. "The adults in these kids' lives are perpetrating the wrong information. That is only making things worse," says Joey George, professor in the MIS department at the College of Business, Florida State University, in Tallahassee. "These jobs are starting to come back." No Cause for Concern? In fairness, some people believe the alarms about a looming I.T. worker shortage are akin to Chicken Little's warnings about the sky falling. John Glaser, vice president and CIO for Partners HealthCare System in Boston, is not currently experiencing a crunch, and he's not overly concerned about the dropping rates of computer science students, either. "It is not clear to me how much of an impact [the declining I.T. student enrollment] will have. Many of our technical people received their education at community colleges, vocational schools or through on-the-job training as they shift careers. I don't know how many of our recent hires have followed a computer science path through college," Glaser says. Recently however, he has seen I.T. staff turnover rates increase from 3 percent to 7 percent to 8 percent. Though CRA research indicates a sharply reduced supply of computer science students in the U.S., Jay Vegso, manager of membership and information services, stops short of declaring an I.T. worker crunch. "Predicting demand [for I.T. workers] is very difficult and has been botched before," Vegso says. There are other countervailing factors. The U.S. government might soon elect to increase again the number of H-1B visas, allowing additional foreign workers to take I.T. jobs here. Companies might do a better job of developing non-technical professionals to join the I.T. ranks. Outsourcing and automation will almost certainly consume an increasing number of I.T. jobs going forward. No one knows for sure what effect these forces will have in a year or two. Large companies are not reporting huge gaps in their available I.T. skills today, but tomorrow could be another matter. Where the Gaps Are It is impossible to precisely know in advance whether the coming shortage will be severe, but there are some best practices I.T. managers should implement now if they haven't already experts advise. Topping the list is an I.T. skills inventory This is exactly what it sounds like -- evaluating what skills are currently in-house, what skills might be needed in the next five years and putting together a plan to bridge that gap. "Companies need to come up with a workforce plan that details how they can continue to meet their own changing needs," says Andy Walker, research director for Gartner. The skills inventory will immediately spotlight the most pressing skills now and for the near term. Networks are still a hot area, and for most organizations finding someone who combines technical savvy with soft skills is an ongoing challenge. People with project management experience and the ability to thrive working in virtual global teams are in desperately short supply. "Companies need both business and technical skills but the business skills are harder to find," Berry says. Many companies have instinctively dealt with a potential worker shortage by extending the working life of people who found they couldn't retire when they wanted because of the economy. "We got an extra few years out of them," Walker says. That is a good way to keep legacy systems going until they need to be replaced, he adds, but is a temporary fix. Creative Solutions Needed On a macro level, Zweig believes the long-term solution to an I.T. worker shortage is to reach out not just to university students but also high school and middle schools. "We have to get students enthused about entering I.T. This is not a dying profession," Zweig says. SIM is working on school outreach efforts with its more than 30 nationwide chapters. As for CIOs who are concerned about how to fill their spots in the coming years, it might take a mixed, creative approach. "You might outsource some folks and bring some up through the in-house ranks, use contractors for other roles," Walker says. He admits this makes managing the I.T. organization more complex. But these efforts will be worth it in the long run if they help preserve I.T. jobs in the U.S. economy. "Other countries are pushing for technical education in their countries. If we don't do that here, companies will have no choice but to send the jobs offshore. That's not good for the U.S.," Markle says. Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of America (I.T.AA), heartily concurs. The combination of fewer students and the coming wave of baby boomer retirements threatens American competitiveness, he says. "It's a myth that the smart people only live in the U.S. The advantages that we had in the field of technology were never going to last forever," Miller says. Miller believes turning the situation around requires a "major wake-up call" on the part of government and private industry. Everyone needs to support the next generation in seeing I.T. as a vibrant, growing occupation, or else the tradition of technology innovation will perish. "We're like the frog sitting in the slowly boiling pot. It is happening so slowly no one notices but pretty soon we're going to be dinner," he says.