I just read a very interesting article that talks about how fears of IT-related jobs being offshored have led to a huge decline in students majoring in IT-related subjects. I know this first-hand. The number of IS majors has dropped significantly at my school since the dot-com bust around 2001. In 2000-2001, I had 120 students and a waiting list for my graduate e-business class. Now, I barely make it to 30 students.
What the article also mentions and which I also know first-hand is that companies are dying to hire more individuals with IT-related skills and education, but there’s nobody to take the jobs, something I’ve also seen first-hand here at Baruch College where I work:
On Tuesday, Martha Pollack, chairwoman of the computer science and engineering department at the University of Michigan, said her department is down to about 350 students today from nearly 700 several years ago.
What perplexes Chari [the head of an information technology department at the University of South Florida] and other academics is that there are more IT-related jobs available today than ever before. For example, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics lists IT-related jobs as some of the most in-demand professions. Computer-related professions occupy three of the top 10 fastest-growing occupations between 2004 and 2014, according to BLS projections.
The combination of low student enrollment and high business demand is having a profound effect on business, university professors say. On a recent weekday, JPMorgan Chase Vice President Jim Meinen visited one of Chari’s MIS classes to drum up interest in his company.
He related a story about how JPMorgan Chase recently sought applicants for 10 technology interns in Tampa, but only four students applied. That’s despite the “serious money” that the bank was offering interns, Meinen said. He wouldn’t be more specific on intern pay.
Even more interesting to me is the following excerpt from the article:
Businesses are telling Chari that they need fewer basic programmers and more IT-professionals with management skills.
Where basic programming can be done anywhere in the world, Chari says, businesses can’t easily offshore jobs in “project management,” in which an IT worker coordinates IT projects, Chari says.
As I said before on this blog, it’s the people who have the knowledge and skill to manage the technology that will always be in demand. As the article says, a lot of programming and other computer science or engineering related activities could be offshored (though I know many companies who rue the day they decided to do that) but management of the technology needs to be done in-house and locally.
I hope that eventually the students will realize how big the demand for IS professionals is and the number of IS majors will increase. In the meantime, I think all of us in the IS field need to learn a little from our colleagues in Marketing and advertise our product better.
Posted by technodarwinism 
