Skills Shortage Continues to Drive Tech Job Market
SANTA MONICA, Calif.
Despite the widespread failure of dot-coms, there remains an acute need by electronic commerce companies for skilled labor. Experts in networked computers, e-business applications, Web software development and other IT skills are in high demand, yet they continue to be hard to find, according to economic experts.
Even though the recent economic slowdown has turned many former dot-com workers into eager job seekers, there is still a severe shortage of skilled IT workers.
"The difference with this global economic downturn is that the role of IT has become much more ingrained in the way economies around the world work," says Michael Boyd, a human resources expert at market-research firm IDC. In fact, according to one study, IT companies would hire 25 percent more people if they could simply find them, according to the Financial Times newspaper.
In the United States, the Meta Group in Santa Monica, Calif., an IT market analyst firm, estimates that some 850,000 IT staff positions are unfilled — more than double the figure of two years ago. As a result, IT salaries — including sign-on bonuses and other incentives — are rising by between 8 percent and 15 percent a year, says Maria Schafer, head of Meta's executive services division.
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