IT Pros Blast ITAA Skills Shortage Report

Computerworld - With 35 years of IT experience and expertise in C++, Java and other technical skills in high demand, Warren MacQueen thinks he should have no problem landing a job.

But the Kansas City-area IT veteran said that after falling victim to mass layoffs at Sprint Corp. in November, he sent out 100 resumes and heard back from only a handful of companies. "I don't think that my skill set is inadequate," he said.

MacQueen is one of scores of IT workers who were angered by last month's Information Technology Association of America report, which claimed there's a shortage of U.S. workers with the right IT skills (see story).

The study projected that despite a 5% dip in the IT job market last year, upward of 1.1 million jobs will be created this year. However, it continued, less than half of those will be filled because workers don't have the right skills. Critics claim that there aren't any jobs in sight and that the supposed IT skills shortage is a myth perpetuated by big business and lobbyists trying to preserve the current employers' market.

"[The study] doesn't seem to jibe with the facts, so you question if there's a hidden agenda or just a lack of judgment," said Ray Hooker, a networking consulting engineer at Cisco Systems Inc.

However, ITAA spokesman Bob Cohen said the report is a forecast rather than an indicator of current conditions. A telephone-based survey of 532 managers across a variety of industries found that companies are struggling to find workers with technical expertise, domain knowledge and project experience, he said.

"People's frustration is understandable, because times have changed and it's more difficult to drive your career than it was in 1999 and 2000," said Cohen. "But you can't overlook what the requirements are or what the hiring companies' views are."

One factor fueling the uproar over the study is that the Arlington, Va.-based ITAA is one of the nation's biggest supporters of the H-1B temporary foreign visa program.

Some critics charged that the skills shortage study was just an attempt to persuade Congress to raise the H-1B cap and flood the IT job market with lower-paid foreigners in order to drive down salaries.

Hooker said he's not opposed to the H-1B program and added that many foreign workers are better educated and more up to date on IT skills than their U.S. counterparts. But, he said, American workers with significant job experience who are equally or more qualified are being shut out by an oversaturated job market.