Is There an IT Skills Shortage in the US or Not?Is There an IT Skills Shortage in the US or Not?

Are there enough tech workers in this country or not? The debate rages on but there is one thing everyone agrees on: Smaller businesses are at the center of it all.information has a point/counterpoint-style series of articles, one of which claims that there is no tech skills shortage in the US and the other of which claims that the tech skills shortage in the US is all too real.

Which is it? For smaller businesses, a little bit of both.

Both articles highlight the decreasing number of computer science graduates. Acknowledges Ron Hira, in his assertion that there is no tech skills shortage: "Enrollment of undergraduate computer science majors in major U.S. colleges and universities has plummeted an astounding 40% over the past four years, according to a survey by the Computing Research Association. Many blame a lack of interest in the tech field among young people, or our failing K-12 education system. But the most likely explanation is that students, using an array of information at their disposal, including advice from relatives in the field, have decided that IT isn't as attractive an option as it once was."

Jerry Luftman says that there is a tech skills shortage and it's going to get worse: "As 70 million baby boomers exit the workforce in the next 15 years, only 40 million people will enter the workforce. McKinsey & Co. predicts that over the next three decades the demand for experienced IT professionals between the ages of 35 and 45 will increase by 25%, while the supply will decrease by 15%."

But Hira believes that the US IT labor market is doing okay for now. He writes: "We're seeing modest wage growth and indications that college enrollments in tech-related programs have bottomed out."

There's no shortage of supply now, he notes, but "there are many looming threats to the domestic workforce" and he highlights a number of larger sized firms that have built huge labor capacity overseas. "Accenture passed a milestone in August, with more employees in India (35,000) than in any other country. IBM will have 100,000 workers in India by 2010, rivaling its U.S. head count. During the next tech recession, those companies will downsize in Boston before Bangalore."

Hira believes that for some employers -- and it sounds like larger companies -- claiming an IT worker shortage "provides them with public relations cover for outsourcing, it induces more people to enter the field, it justifies flooding the market with lower-cost foreign workers, and it gets additional government dollars thrown at the so-called problem."

Luftman says it's the smaller businesses that are going to be the source of new tech jobs in the US. They are the ones who are going to need those IT guys to keep their companies running: "Overall, while very large organizations (more than $3 billion in revenue) and medium-sized organizations ($500 million to $3 billion) are both increasing the amount of work they send to service providers, companies with less than $500 million in revenue are increasing their in-house IT staffs more than increasing their outsourcing activities. Since such businesses make up 99% of U.S. businesses (according to the U.S. Small Business Administration in 2006), this is a significant source of jobs. What this research and other projects that have been carried out are saying is that the market for individuals with IT-related skills is growing. The growth is in IT organizations within client companies that buy IT products and sourcing services, and at IT service providers, domestically and globally."

Will there be tech workers in the US to fill those positions in smaller companies?

Luftman doesn't think so. He writes: "The downward trend in American university students enrolling in computer science and IT-related programs has leveled and is beginning to slowly reverse. This is good news, but it's not happening quickly enough to overcome the combination of the current thin pipeline and the impending baby boomer retirement. Increased sourcing to offshore locations is becoming a necessity for many organizations as they fail to find the talent they need within the United States."

Is finding tech talent a struggle at your company? Do you think there is a tech skills shortage? Let us know.