A looming talent shortage in tech?

Posted on 03. Oct, 2005 posted by Bill in Employment News

A looming talent shortage in tech?

High-tech talent might soon be in short supply again, judging from the buzz at a recent Society for Information Management symposium.
With the economy picking up, baby-boomer techies getting set to retire and college graduates flocking to other fields, staffing challenges are getting tougher.

“You’re going to have a problem getting people,” Leslie Ball, senior executive professor at Northeastern University’s College of Business Administration, warned employers. “We’ve had a rapid decline in our (management information systems) majors because of the dot-com bust, because of outsourcing, because kids no longer think they’re going to be making millions of dollars in technology.”

Finding and keeping workers hasn’t been this high on the agenda for most businesses since the boom days of the 1990s.

Many have returned to growth and profitability, though at modest rates, and have resumed hiring.
High-tech employment in Central Texas remains 26 percent below 2000 levels. But some sectors — companies that sell computers, peripherals and software; software publishers; printed circuit board makers; and Internet service providers — have seen jobs return to or exceed the totals from five years ago. Others, such as semiconductor and computer manufacturing, remain down by more than one-third.

U.S. employers are scrambling to fill more skilled positions in project management, systems integration and business analysis. The ability to apply technology to business is crucial. “There’s a strong need for the coupling of basic information-technology skills with business knowledge,” said Phil Zweig, vice president of information systems at Northwestern Mutual.

M. Lewis Temares, vice president of information technology and dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Miami, offered some advice to employers: Hire talented technology workers whenever you find them, even if you don’t have a specific job opening.

“You can’t afford to lose talent that’s available in the marketplace when the talent is available in the marketplace,” he said.

Category 2000 2005*
Computer/peripheral manuf. 17,596 10,866
Communications equip. manuf. 3,291 1,547
Semiconductors 23,432 15,048
Printed circuit board assembly 389 700
Elect. instrument manuf. 2,617 2,122
Software reproducing 256 171
Computer, software wholesalers16,266 18,339
Software publishers 5,331 5,424
Internet publishing 223 132
Internet service providers 1,105 1,401
Total 70,506 55,750

Source: Texas Workforce Commission

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