Readers Don't See a Workforce Crisis

Computerworld - I have been in IT for 25 years, and I can understand why younger people are not entering the field ["Workforce Crisis," Management, July 3]. All you hear is "outsourcing, outsourcing." Why go into the field when that threat is always hanging over your head? I know profitability is key, but Americans cannot live as cheaply as the people in India.

L. Puckett
Systems analyst
Albuquerque

There is no reason to believe that baby boomer IT workers won't simply be replaced with cheap offshore labor -- workers who work long hours for low wages and don't need flexible work arrangements or flexible benefits, or even any of the simple securities afforded Western workers. The "boomer crunch" myth doesn't have any traction outside of technical college recruiting offices.

Keith Tyler
Seattle

We have heard these same scare tactics for years. If you look at the history of IT worker shortages, you will find that the reasons are always the same. Technology has a boom-and-bust cycle. Our free economy will take care of any worker shortages if companies pay for skills and treat workers fairly.

Bill Stutters
DBA
Denver

The so-called lack of IT talent does not exist. There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of unemployed or non-IT-employed IT people in the U.S. Because of the rash of outsourcing to other countries, many people with IT skills now work at McDonald's or Wal-Mart or drive taxi cabs. Others can't get a job at all because they are overqualified for everything they apply for.

David Somner
Freelance contract programmer
Hollywood, Fla.

The real reason why computer science and IT enrollment is down at schools, why average retirement among IT workers is at a young 63 and why there is a coming crunch in IT workers is simply this: IT jobs are not enjoyable anymore. With the crash of the dot-coms and the merger of many large companies into even larger companies, IT positions have become little more than bureaucratic form jobs, reporting to some MBA who resents his IT people being paid so much and is eagerly waiting to shovel the work overseas.

Students in college aren't stupid; they know that IT is not where anyone places any value. They'd rather be doing something cool and fun and that has an impact.

Personally, I can't wait to take my three degrees in computer science and retire, or at least go do something I enjoy. Because company IT certainly is not it anymore.

Edward Reasor
Senior architect
Tampa, Fla.

Frankly, I can't feel too sorry for U.S. companies suddenly facing the prospect of labor shortages because older workers are leaving the workforce [" 'Perfect Storm' on Horizon for U.S. Labor Market," Computerworld.com, July 10]. I am one of those older workers, and I and many of my generation would like to work until close to 70 years old. But having been laid off in 2002, partly because employers could find cheaper labor in H-1Bs and younger workers, I have been functionally unemployed for over four years. Even companies where I would have been an excellent fit were not interested and took "a different direction." Age discrimination? Maybe.