Skip Links

Network World

  • Social Web 
  • Email 
  • Close

Nearly 1 million jobs could be created by IT stimulus package, think tank says

Tech group urges Congress to invest $30 billion in IT
By Jon Brodkin , Network World , 01/06/2009
Newsletter Signup
  • Share/Email
  • Tweet This
  • Comment
  • Print

An information technology think tank is urging Congress to devote $30 billion toward the IT industry, saying such a move will create or retain nearly 1 million jobs, more than half of them at small businesses.

The economy may be in recession but there is federal money to be had, with President-elect Barack Obama proposing a two-year, $775 billion economic stimulus plan. The nonprofit Information Technology and Innovation Foundation is urging the government to devote a large portion of that money to IT in a report to be released Wednesday titled The Digital Road to Recovery: A Stimulus Plan to Create Jobs, Boost Productivity and Revitalize America

“Although projects to improve the country’s traditional physical infrastructure (e.g., roads, bridges, sewer systems) are necessary and important, investments in certain parts of our national information technology (IT) infrastructure—America’s digital infrastructure—will have a greater positive impact on jobs, productivity, and innovation,” ITIF president and report lead author Robert Atkinson writes.

Pumping $30 billion into American’s IT infrastructure this year would create 949,000 jobs, 525,000 of which would be in businesses with fewer than 500 employees, ITIF says. The report’s proposed spending would be divided evenly in three areas: broadband networks, health IT and a smart power grid.

“Investments in IT infrastructure should not be minimized out of concern that the projects will take too long to begin to have an immediate impact on the U.S. economy,” Atkinson writes. “If the stimulus measures are designed properly, they can quickly spur a large number of investments—from deploying more and faster broadband networks to switching to electronic health records (EHRs) to rolling out advanced energy metering technologies (smart meters)—that are ‘shovel-ready.’”

ITIF used a liberal definition of jobs created by IT investments in its report. In addition to jobs created directly by new spending, there would also be jobs created in businesses that supply materials necessary materials for infrastructure upgrades – such as circuit boards for routers.

The report also counts some jobs having nothing to do with IT, such as those in the restaurant and retail industries, because these jobs would theoretically be created when newly employed IT workers start spending their paychecks. Much of the job creation would also come in the form of the “network effect,” in which investments in a sector like health IT spur developments of new products and services.

  • Share/Email
  • Tweet This
  • Comment
  • Print
Partner Content

NetScout and analyst Jim Metzler have teamed to deliver a series of IT Briefs on Network and Application Performance Management leveraging research from NetScout's nGenius & Sniffer users.

www.netscout.com

Metzler on Service Delivery Management

Delivering IT business value by evolving our thinking from managing application performance to focusing on services.

Learn More

2009 Handbook of Application Delivery

Successful IT organizations must know how to make the right application delivery decisions in these tough economic times.

Download the Handbook

Metzler on the Modern IP Network

Discusses the growing emphasis on network management and the need to implement a holistic view of the end-to-end experience of the user.

Read the Brief

Comments (5)
Login
Forgot your account info?

The industry needs a good kickstart in both the multicast and IPBy Anonymous on January 7, 2009, 8:27 pmThe industry needs a good kickstart in both the multicast and IPv6 arena.

Reply | Read entire comment

IT JobsBy Anonymous on January 7, 2009, 7:14 pmYou mean Congress will send India $30 billion dollars because thats were the IT jobs will be going once again.

Reply | Read entire comment

They'll just farm them out.By Anonymous on January 7, 2009, 3:37 pmNo, because what will happen is the companies will just figure out a way to farm the jobs out over seas. They'll still take the money and show it going to IT but...

Reply | Read entire comment

IT JobsBy JohnB on January 7, 2009, 3:01 pm....and the funding to accomplish this would come from where? What apps whould this enable?

Reply | Read entire comment

IT JobsBy Kim on January 7, 2009, 1:08 pmThe Internet really needs to convert over to IPv6 . If that was done a lot of jobs would be created - both in the conversions and in the new applications a devices...

Reply | Read entire comment

View all comments

Add comment
Anonymous comments subject to approval. Register here for member benefits.
Have a NetworkWorld account? Log in here. Register now for a free account.

Videos

rssRss Feed