Just Enough Governance for Notes Blog :: IT Labor Shortage in the United States? Or Self-Serving Myth?

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More specifically, is there a Lotus Notes Developer and/or Admin shortage?

Why would corporate America want to create the illusion of an IT labor shortage if there isn’t one? There are likely many reasons, but first among them is the desire to continue having a stream of highly qualified, relatively inexpensive IT talent ready and waiting for their call.

I read an article today in Baseline magazine (article) that cites several studies by Duke University, RAND Corporation, The Urban Institute and Stanford University, among others, which come to the same conclusion: There is NO shortage of educated IT workers. In fact, The RAND Corporation claims several studies that provide evidence that there is actually a surplus.

Ron Hira, a professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology insists that the United States has “graduated more than enough computer scientists”. He also looks at the unemployment rate to provide evidence that there is no IT worker shortage. Finally, Hira points to the fact that wages have been flat indicating no shortage.

Is this really an H-1B visa issue where US companies are pushing for increased access to cheap foreign IT workers? (the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service received 123,480 H-1B applications for 65,000 H-1B visa slots in only 2 days? -- USCIS)

So what is really going on here? Is there a shortage? Is it only for certain skill sets? What about in the Notes world? It’s difficult to find specific information about the job market for Lotus Notes developers and administrators. What is your experience? Is it tough to find good people? Or are you simply a lot more selective than you once were? Are Notes projects delayed or canceled because you can’t find quality people with the right skill set?

Comments

1 - Anther indicator that there is not a shortage is that the starting salaries of recent graduates have remained flat or have fallen.

Posted by Dovid At 04:08:11 PM On 04/08/2008 | - Website - |

2 - The evidence is overwhelming that there is no IT labor shortage. For any given senior-level position with requirements for specific skills and experience, there is always a shortage of well-qualified candidates at the employer's desired level of compensation, but this is not a sign of a shortage. It is a sign of lack of investment in employees by employers. The days when companies proudly advertised the quality of their internal training programs in technology are long gone. The rate of technology change is too fast. People can't keep up, and companies don't want to pay to train or even wait for people to get trained on their own. Nobody wants to hire an IT person and pay them at a level commensurate with 10+ years experience, yet have to pay them to to learn on the job. Thus there is always a "shortage" of people for next year's hot technology at the same time that the supply of people for last year's technology is just getting to be adequate. Meanwhile, the surplus pool of people trained in what was hot two years' ago falls by the wayside and is replaced by cheaper H1B labor -- or simply by younger people who just got their university training in the technology that will be hot in industry two years from now!

Posted by Richard Schwartz At 11:17:14 PM On 04/08/2008 | - Website - |

3 - In the case of Lotus Notes there is a shortage of employment opportunities, not skilled workers. Many, many former Lotus Developers have moved on to other jobs due to the lack of demand for their skills. I had a recruiter call me for a short term contract recently and he summed it up this way; "The bad news is that there is virtually no demand for Notes Developers. The good news is that when someone needs one, they are desperate because they can't find anyone". Do you define this situation as a shortage of skilled IT workers?

Posted by Ed Maloney At 05:48:07 AM On 04/09/2008 | - Website - |

4 - To Ed - Great question! I guess if employers can't find a Notes developer when they need one, that is a shortage. Not that Notes developers don't exist, but if they are not available because they are already employed, working with other technologies, etc., that still creates a shortage. A declining workforce for a given technology (Notes?), increased demand for certain skills (Cobol programmers during the Y2K scare), and unique requirements (i.e. "Notes programmer with 10+ years experience developing missle guidance systems and massage therapy") can all create shortages, even if only temporarily.

Posted by Scott Johnsen At 08:20:42 AM On 04/09/2008 | - Website - |

5 - LOL! Isn't that what our business is about? Massaging and collaboration? Emoticon