Title: CEO
Organization: The Brokers Group LLC, Princeton, N.J.
By most accounts, the economy is on an upward trajectory, with corporate profits growing, unemployment rates low and demand for skilled labor -- including business-savvy technologists -- leading to tighter market conditions. Contrast that with 2000 and 2001, when the dot-com bubble burst, resulting in widespread layoffs, overworked IT departments and a sharp rise in the use of offshore IT labor. So, what happened to those IT workers who lost jobs in the first few years of the new millennium? Many of them left the IT market and never came back, says Dan Reynolds of The Brokers Group, a regional staffing service. Computerworld's Thomas Hoffman spoke to Reynolds about those vanished IT workers and other market trends.
How would you characterize the IT labor market? Is there strong demand for certain types of skills? There's strong demand in certain vertical industries. There's more money in the economy, and our business almost tracks the economy like a mirror. We're seeing strong demand for people with solid project-management skills. We're also seeing strong demand for sophisticated Java -- specifically J2EE -- folks. People with Microsoft .Net skills are extremely popular right now. Within these skill sets, clients are also looking for people with vertical-industry expertise, like pharmaceutical or biotech experience.
We're seeing strong demand for Oracle database administrators and a need for Unix systems administrators. We're also seeing a lot on the data warehousing/business intelligence side.
Is increased demand driving higher wages? What we saw last year was a leveling of wages. In 2006, we're seeing an increase in wages. Quality talent is scarcer, so people are recognizing they need to be more flexible around compensation. We're also seeing [IT] teams a little bit better staffed than in the past. It's unsustainable to have people work 12 to 15 hours a day. Companies are having to add people.
Are the IT workers who lost their jobs between 2001 and 2005 re-entering the market? Highly skilled people, people who brought value to the client, stayed employed. They might've stayed employed with a slight rate reduction, but not by much. Those people who weren't as highly skilled might have run into problems. If you were doing Cobol, CICS or DB2 [programming], you found yourself in a world of hurt for a while. I don't really see them coming back into the workforce that much.
Are employers leaning more toward hiring contract workers or full-timers? We're seeing [employers] trying to have their cake and eat it too. Most clients would like to bring workers on as contract labor with the option of picking them up as permanent employees. It's almost like doing a working interview, bringing someone on for six months and then determining whether to bring them on full time. We're seeing a lot of that.
Data bank
-- 72 percent: U.S. workers who say they are very or somewhat satisfied with their compensation.
-- 44 percent: Say they would change their mix of cash and benefits if they could.
-- 33 percent: Say they want a flexible schedule.
-- 26 percent: Work for an organization that does not offer health care benefits.
-- 25 percent: Would consider working for a company that doesn't offer health care.
-- 22 percent: Want additional family benefits.
Source: Hudson Highland Group Inc.'s 2006 "Compensation and Benefits Report," a survey based on the responses of 10,000 workers, conducted in March 2006
New cert for sec
The American National Standards Institute has accredited (ISC)2's Information Systems Security Engineering Professional (ISSEP) credential. According to (ISC)2 (the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium), the ISSEP credential was developed with the U.S. National Security Agency to establish a level of knowledge and expertise unique to U.S. national security employees and contractors. (ISC)2's CISSP credential is a prerequisite for acquiring the ISSEP certification.
Seeking STARS
A consortium of 10 colleges, mostly in the Southeast, has received a US$2 million National Science Foundation grant to recruit a diverse group of students to earn college degrees in IT, computer science and other computing fields. The STARS (Students and Technology in Academia, Research and Service) Alliance aims to encourage more people to pursue careers in computer science and IT, particularly women, underrepresented minorities and people with disabilities.
As reported on Computerworld.com last month, the Washington-based Computing Research Association says that the number of bachelor's degrees in computer science at Ph.D.-granting universities fell to 11,808 in the 2004-05 academic year, down 17 percent from the previous year. Those schools enroll about 30 percent of the total undergraduates in the U.S. The same trend may also be affecting academic programs that combine business and IT skills training.
The STARS Student Leadership Corps will consist of 137 students in the first year of the project and more students in subsequent years. The program will use peer mentoring, research experiences, civic engagement and professional development to support computer science students throughout their academic careers. Participating students will receive stipends for two years to help recruit and retain other students.
Meanwhile, the National Center for Women & Information Technology received a $1 million, four-year grant from Microsoft Corp. in order to encourage women's participation in IT. IT Employment in the High-tech Sector 5.6M 2006 6.5M 2001 Note: The 2006 figure represents a 1 percent increase from the previous year, the first time since 2001 that the number of IT jobs has increased. Source: American Electronics Association, Washington