News and numbers from US IT world

IT no longer viewed a promising career

When the tech-telecom bubble burst, IT employment slumped, going from 3.4 million to as low as 3.2 million, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. And that disguises the level of turmoil in the US IT job market--for example, there are 220,000 fewer people who call themselves programmers today than in 2000, analysis of the bureaus stats shows.

This means that IT is no longer viewed as the promising career as it was seen before the tech-telecom fiasco. However statistics shows that attitudes toward IT as a career path has improved in the last two years--though most in the profession still are down on it. Back in 2004, only 15% of staffers thought IT was a promising a career path as five years earlier. Today, 29% says that it looks as good as five years ago. As for managers, 38% are as optimistic as they were five years ago, a better mood than the survey found two years ago. Still, 61% of staffers and 53% of managers now think that the IT career path doesnt seem as promising as it did five years ago.

Nicholas Richi is one of the IT pros who has been through the tough times. He thinks that hes got the right mix of skills and the right job to fend off outsourcing. He is a full-time Java programmer, developing front-end systems that make SAP applications easier to access. One current project is for account collection teams.

Richi says that his job isnt very susceptible to outsourcing or offshoring because of the close work he does with users. "If you can find a niche like SAP with specialized business skills, thats harder to outsource," he says. Yet he warns against getting too far from technology, too much in business or project management, because those jobs are dropped quickly when projects slow down.

Security related jobs are largely outsource resistant

Information security professionals need not worry much about outsourcing, as, though companies do outsource some security functions, most are reluctant to outsource major security functions. As researcher Foote says "Companies are crazy scared about outsourcing security".

Talent crunch

Contrary to popular belief that IT professionals are rendered jobless because of outsourcing, most IT executives says that there is a serious shortage of talent in certain IT related areas. E.&J. Gallo Winery is struggling to find integration, business intelligence, and security skills in central California region. "When we post openings for these jobs, we dont get a lot of resumes, so the search criteria is changing a lot, and were providing more training," CIO Kent Kushar says.

Gallo sends some programming offshore, such as a current business intelligence project. But theres little turnover among Gallos IT department of 200 people, and the staff received raises in recent years when other IT shops were holding back on pay hikes.

Most top-level executives are of the opinion that there is a promising future for U.S. IT professionals, despite outsourcing and offshoring. This is attributed to the idea that cost savings in offshoring will eventually be squeezed as countries such as India struggle to keep their workforce skilled in the latest technologies. This is thought to make U.S. workers who understand technology and business even more valuable.

All this does not comfort a lot of IT workers, even if recent data suggests that offshoring hasnt reduced total IT employment or clobbered salaries. Its not yet clear whether the current tight labor supply, marked by 2.5% unemployment, will lead to higher salaries, or whether the offshore alternative will keep a lid on wages. However, its certain that offshore competition will continue moving into new areas of IT work, forcing IT pros to manage their careers well to avoid getting caught in the path of lower-cost labor.

And one thing US IT professionals mired in the uncertainty of the whole offshore rigamarole can do is update their skills constantly and be ready for change. If surveys are any indication, numbers are on their side, for now.

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