IP: Debunking the Myth of a Desperate Software Labor Shortage

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

>X\Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2000 20:01:56 -0600
>To: Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>
>From: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>
>
>
>Debunking the Myth of a Desperate Software Labor Shortage
>
>by Dr. Norman Matloff
>
>Due to an extensive public relations campaign orchestrated by an industry 
>trade organization, the Information Technology Association of America 
>(ITAA), a rash of newspaper articles have been appearing since early 1997, 
>claiming desperate labor shortages in the information-technology field. 
>Frantic employers complain that they cannot fill many open positions for 
>computer programmers. (Footnote: Our focus on computer programmers here is 
>explained in the section "Reason for the Focus on Software.")
>
>Yet readers of the articles proclaiming a shortage would be perplexed if 
>they also knew that Microsoft only hires 2% of its applicants for software 
>positions, and that this rate is typical in the industry. Software 
>employers, large or small, across the nation, concede that they receive 
>huge numbers of resumes but reject most of them without even an interview. 
>One does not have to be a "techie" to see the contradiction here. If 
>employers were that desperate, they would certainly not be hiring just a 
>minuscule fraction of their job applicants.
>
>The hidden agenda of the ITAA public relations campaign which began in 
>1997 turned out to be to leverage Congress to increase the yearly quota of 
>H-1B work visas, under which employers were importing tens of thousands of 
>programmers to the U.S....
>
>http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/itaa.real.html
>