I'm going to let you in on a little secret: there is no IT shortage in America and hasn't been one in 20 years. If you trade you know that it is silly to talk about a shortage without talking about price, just as you can always buy a stock -- you can always find a worker for any job. The price is the question. In fact, educated people today of all caliber are cheaper then they ever have been in history. Why do you think that education is so important and that businesses promote it? An educated person is a commodity, like any other with a price. The more of that commodity available then the lower the price. I'll share again my experience going through a Microsoft recruiter, he had basically a long list of qualified applicants and before I was "cleared for hire". I had entered the interview process a few times but had it abruptly cut short because someone had got into the "queue" ahead of me and this was at the peak of the bubble before unemployment rates had risen. Now that I've shared that little secret. I'm going to share another secret. Many tech jobs do not require an inordinate amount of education or training. It doesn't take a genius to administer a database or provide troubleshooting. Of course, for someone to gain experience in several areas can take 5, 10, and more years -- often requiring more work then even a lawyer puts in. But, who gets payed more? The lawyer. Why? Supply and demand. Lawyers are a traditionally protected occupation. People complain about unions but engineers, lawyers, dentist, and doctors are all protected fields: they require a license. When I was in school a few years ago, a student mentioned computer science and one of the brightest students said, "Don't go into that because it is all outsourced." Many campuses have cut back or closed computer science courses. What companies are experiencing is the FREE MARKET at work. They quit paying American workers to do tech jobs and American workers quit investing into that. The only difference is that the companies have a significant advantage in that it is much easier to BUY OFFSHORE work then to MOVE OVERSEAS. ASYMMETRIES, such as that, DEVELOP and ERODE as a function of technology on a regular basis. For example, publishers enjoyed the benefits of VERY CHEAP PRODUCTION from the time of the PRINTING PRESS until recently when CONSUMER efficiency increased due to the INTERNET. And while many such efforts in increased efficiency may not be in accordance with accepted norms, it would certainly be able to create EXCLUSIVE LOCK sharing systems that should be LEGAL. But would certainly be ATTACKED by the RECORDING INDUSTRY. Other professions experience such boom and busts, if you looked at a bull market trend then you can see the people who get in early often fair very good but those who get in late often never do as well. A good example of that would be the Bitcoin, early adopters profited well but the currency has been an extended and unrelenting bear market. The same thing happens with lawyers or any other commodity in a free market. People hear and see about lawyers making big coin and everyone goes to school to get that big coin. Inevitable, the market becomes over-saturated and students are left with debt that is disproportionate to their income. I'd love to see technology salaries soar. It may be just the time. As we know, markets over extent and over correct all the time. But, in essence, people are not interested in technology because the ENTRY LEVEL jobs have been OFFSHORED and the more experienced jobs pay FAR LESS then the TIME, COST, and EFFORT required to learn them.
My sisters boyfriend spends an increasing amount of time in the US on IT projects mostly on the network side of things pretty much because they can't recruit enough people with the skills. Last year his company were flying folk in from the UK and Singapore for holiday cover in the US.
Theres no shortage of workers, they are just not willing to pay a decent wage, company execs treat I.T workers in all fields as shit, an expense and nothing else. All executives in most companies believe I.T is easy as they have a compute at home, with wifi and all the latest bells and whistles....and they havent had a problem with their computers at home in years, so why can it be so hard........ in an enterprise its harder but they dont see it that way. next they will outsource the network guys?....try calling a useless oversees level 2 and 3 support when the network has a major outage.... ...but im sure they will try.
The cheap slave-laboresque arbitrage for Western companies exploiting Indian ( and now Russian and Argentine ) skills in this area is the the true driver. The US advanced-degree college grads in the area ( I have a few in my family ) are avoiding this sector by intent, and are instead getting into other niche sectors and not wholesale software development. There has been some considerable push back in recent years regarding this trend - in fact, a growing number of companies are now promoting and advertising the fact that they utilize American technical support desks. Many companies have been thinking long and hard as of late about the benefit vs. cost-savings quality of their outsourced overseas IT functions. There have been significant customer quality perception issues.
i agree with those who say it comes down to money. In an ideal situation its cool work for a lot of money (trading systems). Then its crap work for a lot of money (IT contract at big corp). Then its cool work for little money (academia, national lab, RD) Then its crap work for little money (IT) However, nothing is stopping people from taking multiple "fulltime" jobs that are telecommute or one onsite job and multiple telecommute jobs. In my experience most jobs don't take up 40hrs/week; so just get 3 telecommute jobs that pay 80k/yr... simple
First, take a look at this link: http://yourworkforcesolutions.com/images/stories/documents/state-tol-2010-11.pdf This is from a survey done of companies in Florida which asked how many people they expected to hire for specific positions. Looking at "Network Analysts" for example, we see a projected growth of 4.88%, with 1519 potential openings, at an entry-level wage of $20.11/hourly ($40k/year), and a mean wage of $32.76/hourly ($68k/year). Now, look at this: http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=network+analyst&l=florida This is a search of Indeed.com for "Network Analysts" in Florida. A quick click on a few of these postings shows that most, if not all, of the open positions require at least 5-7 years relevant experience, with many requiring specialized experience and multiple certifications. So, as stated before, the disconnect seems to be the experience requirement, which serves as a major disincentive to people considering entering this field. Why spend four years getting a degree for a job that pays $40k/year to start, in a field that typically requires at least five years of experience to get hired? Whatever happened to "entry-level" jobs, where acompany would hire a recent grad and train them to do the work they needed done? The answer: outsourcing
There's one small problem with this scenario: AGENCIES. And wow, are they ever so greedy ! They'll whittle that "lot of money" down to a "meager amount" in the blink of an eye ball.