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The Search for Skills
For the computer industry, finding a well-trained workforce is proving difficult

The national economy is generally healthy and unemployment levels are setting record lows, especially in the Central Kentucky area. Cause for rejoicing and dancing in the streets, right? Well, yes and no. The savvy information industry executive understands that, from a skilled labor shortage point of view, all is not sweetness and light in the Bluegrass and beyond, right? Well, yes and no.

In July, the U.S. economy generated 66,000 new jobs. While that was the lowest monthly number in two and a half years, It turns out that more than a third of them were in computer services and manufacturing, which led the Bureau of Labor Statistics to characterize the gains as evidence of "strong long-term growth trends" in the computer industry. So, what's the problem?

The final report of the 1998 Software Business Practice Survey, sponsored by Price Waterhouse, Silicon Valley East, and the Massachusetts Software Council, reveals that more than 75 percent of U.S. software executives plan to hire more workers in the coming year. However, they seem to be sufficiently worried about the availability of skilled, knowledgeable workers in the labor force to rate this particular concern number one in this year's survey. The same concern ranked fourteenth in 1996. Additionally, spokespersons for the wider realm of high technology industries assert that there are currently 350,000 open high-tech positions in the United States just waiting to be filled, if only the right folks would come along.

With the industry megatonnage of Microsoft and Intel leading the way, a number of high-tech firms have been lobbying our representatives in the hallowed halls of Congress to ease immigration laws that limit the number of skilled foreign workers allowed into the country. As a matter of fact, there is currently a bill afloat that would increase the number of long-term "temporary" visas available to such workers. The shortage of home-grown talent, they say, is stifling growth and putting them at a disadvantage with their foreign competitors.

There is some evidence, however, to indicate that high-tech industries are the victims, at least partially, of their own hiring practices. Over the past decade, there has been a galloping trend toward using temporary labor in programming and otherwise skilled positions simply because, as we all know, outsourcing saves money on benefits and overhead, and besides, it's kind of becoming the American way, from a business perspective. However, low unemployment levels (and they are lowest in the high-tech industries) mean that many of those folks who once worked as temporaries are now gainfully employed with full benefits. That means that the largest companies, the ones that are most likely to take advantage of hordes of temporary laborers, are the ones that feel the pinch most severely.

Some industry observers believe that there is still no cause for alarm, even for the companies that claim to be feeling the pinch. Citing Bureau of Labor Statistics figures and the laws of economics, they point out that high-tech companies should be willing to pay more for skilled workers if they really wanted them that badly. The Bureau reports that the number of computer scientists has tripled in the last ten years, but their pay has only increased 4.4 percent above inflation, which is well below many other skilled positions such as surveyors (20 percent above inflation) and dietitians (17 percent). For computer programmers, salaries have actually lagged behind inflation by 1.8 percent since 1988. Thus, say these observers, there couldn't be a real shortage, or it would be evident in the usual indicators.

The White House appears to buy into the latter argument and predicts that President Clinton will veto the above-mentioned bill.