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February 27, 1998:
Hour One: High-tech jobs:
| Salaries for information technology workers are increasing - a sure sign, some analysts claim, of a shortage in the workforce. But at the same time, the number of students awarded university degrees in fields like computer science has decreased sharply from what it was ten years ago.
Last month, the Information Technology Association of America, an industry trade group, released a report finding that ten percent of the high-tech jobs in the information industry go unfilled. These positions, the group claims, including systems analysts, computer scientists and engineers, and computer programmers, are essential to the country's continued economic growth in an increasingly technological world. |  | Although not everyone agrees with the ITAA findings, the White House Office of Technology Policy accepts the basic idea that information technology workers are in short supply. OTP estimates, based on growth projections from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, that the U.S. will need over 137,000 new information technology workers per year through 2006 to replace those retiring and to fill new jobs.
On the other hand, unemployed computer programmers wonder why, if there is such a shortage of skilled workers, it is so difficult for some to find jobs. Others point to the projected dearth of scientists announced in the 1980's. It turned out that instead of there being a shortage of scientists and engineers, there was a surplus - leading to an extremely tight job market for science Ph.D.'s today. The information technology job market, they argue, may not be as short-staffed as industry groups would like one to believe.
If there is indeed a shortage, what can be done about it? The ITAA, backed by some leaders in Congress, is suggesting that the U.S. should consider using foreign workers to fill the gap. They say that the government should increase the number of visas made available to skilled foreign workers. Currently, 65,000 of these "H-1B" visas may be awarded each year. Some people are suggesting that the number be increased by fifty percent or more - a very controversial solution that has brought on claims that industry is just trying to keep from hiring more experienced, more expensive U.S. workers.
Other possibilities include retraining skilled workers or out-of-work Ph.D.'s from other fields (like math or engineering) to make them viable job candidates, encouraging more students to go into computer science, making use of some kind of high-tech temp agency, or even moving jobs overseas to take advantage of lower-cost skilled labor pools.
Join us for a discussion of the high-tech job market and its problems,
on this hour of Science Friday.
Guests:
Kelly Carnes
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy
Department of Commerce
Washington, DC
Michael Teitelbaum
Program Officer
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
New York, NY
Gale Fitzgerald
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Computer Task Group
Buffalo, NY
Geoff Davis
Assistant Professor of Mathematics
Dartmouth College
Hanover, NH
Books/Articles Discussed:
Related Links:
Office of Technology Policy
The Information Technology Association
of America
AAAS Commission on Professionals
in Science and Technology
National Academy of Science Career
Planning Center
Science's Next Wave
phds.org
A
Christian Science Monitor story: KEY IMPORT: KEEN MINDS
phds.org articles
about 'The Myth': the faulty 1980s-era NSF prediction of a scientist
shortage
Department of Commerce
Immigration and Naturalization Service
Department of Labor
NWCET, an NSF-funded program
in Advanced Technological Education
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