Tech leaders scramble for IT talent

Massachusetts CIO plans for imminent loss of workforce to retirement with UMass Boston partnership; Boston CIO enables online job application process.

BOSTON -- Massachusetts tech leaders today are working to get ahead of the "quiet crisis" IT management will face in a few years when scores of IT staff retire.

"We have more than 2,000 IT professionals in the Commonwealth, and 30% are going to retire within five years. The changing workforce is dramatic, both in demographics and skill sets," said Anne Margulies, assistant secretary and CIO for the commonwealth of Massachusetts. "The people we have, all have to be retrained. This is the quiet crisis in IT management," she added.

Margulies told attendees Thursday at research firm Input's State Executive Breakfast in Boston that, because of her previous work experience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, she also realizes the number of computer science graduates is dwindling. The imminent retirement of baby boomer IT workers and the loss of interest in IT for students has tech leaders at public and private organizations looking for talent now to avoid being resource constrained in the future.

"Even at MIT, enrollment in computer science programs is steadily declining, due to outsourcing concerns and the dot-com bust. We have fewer computer scientists in our schools, and the supply is going to be down when the demand will be way up in a few years," she said.

Margulies included recruiting new IT talent among her top five priorities as Massachusetts' technology leader. The commonwealth has partnered with the University of Massachusetts Boston to develop courses and internship programs to make sure existing government IT staff can be trained in the latest skills, and to develop a pipeline of new talent graduating from the university into commonwealth positions.

Margulies said as part of its updated training program, the commonwealth has developed courses in project management, Java development, and business analysis and design methodologies at the city school. And by partnering with the university on the internship program, Massachusetts will hire 20 UMass Boston computer-science graduates this year.

"UMass Boston is eager to increase enrollment and create a pipeline of students coming out of UMass and into the commonwealth," she said.

Despite Massachusetts' and many other states' having to cut costs, Margulies reported that IT is an area in which commonwealth leaders will increase investment. The IT Bond Bill currently before the Massachusetts legislature calls for a $450 million budget for modernizing existing systems and investing in new technologies, as well as for another $78 million for a second data center in Western Massachusetts to augment the current Chelsea location.

While it can get "pretty gloomy in staff meetings," Margulies says IT is one of the "few budget areas with increases."

Bill Oates, CIO of the city of Boston, also spoke at the Input event and reinforced Margulies' sentiment on the graying of IT and the potential skills shortage his organization faces.

"We're facing the same situation as the state. We have a lot of retirements, and we need to find the right skill sets," Oates said. "There are great IT roles within the city to fill, and I'm having enormous difficulty filling these roles."

Oates said Boston has established an online job application site, dubbed Boston Career Center, to ease and speed the job-application process for IT and other city positions.