Seventy-six million Americans will reach retirement age within the next decade, according to an April 2006 study conducted by Boston-based AMR Research. Couple that with Society for Information Management (SIM) estimates that enrollment in IT-related courses at U.S. colleges and universities is dropping by 40% each year, and the likelihood of a national IT labor shortage becomes all too apparent.
At the same time, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Office of Technology estimates that about 2.5 million IT jobs will be created in the U.S. between 2000 and 2010. The American Electronics Association estimates that the number of IT workers stood at 5.6 million at the end of 2006.
To help address an anticipated shortfall in the U.S. IT labor pipeline, SIM this year plans to expand its college IT career programs to high school students.
The professional group for IT executives 18 months ago teamed up with Microsoft to launch a program called Future Potential in IT in which local CIOs and Microsoft executives make presentations about IT career opportunities to groups of 200 to 400 students at U.S. colleges and universities, said Leo Collins, SIM vice president of advocacy and communities of interest.
The presentations are targeted at both technical and nontechnical majors, said Collins, who is also CIO at Lion’s Gate Entertainment in Santa Monica, Calif. “We’re appealing to people who will be future IT leaders,” including students who are developing business experience and soft skills, added James Noble, president of SIM International and group vice president and CIO at Altria Group in New York. The presentations are also Webcast by participating schools for students unable to attend live meetings, he said.
Noble said that SIM is planning to organize programs at a dozen presentations at colleges and universities around the U.S. this year.
Meanwhile, SIM plans to reach out to high school students and guidance counselors by drawing off a program created by its Dallas chapter, Collins said. “By the time [students are] in university, it’s a little late to bring this issue to bear,” noted Noble. “We feel we have to catch people’s decision-making process a little earlier.”
Some labor experts believe that some of the dire warnings of a mass baby boomer exodus have been exaggerated, since some older workers are expected to extend their careers due to financial or other reasons. As such, a sizeable percentage of retirement-age IT workers may elect to become contractors — either with their current employers or for other organizations.
But the retirement-age workers don’t fully address the emerging labor gaps, said Noble. “As in any profession, you’re relying on refreshing the profession with new blood, people with innovative ideas and training in new technologies. If we don’t keep the flow of new people into the profession, we fail to innovate,” he said.
