Comment Industry Groups Still have their Heads in the Sand (Score 3, Interesting) 1286
Something that's very dishearting is that industry groups are still claiming that there are tons of engineering
and IT jobs going available, despite what the rest of us might think. Last May, the Information Technology
Association of America (ITAA) released a study claiming
that 578,000 IT jobs would go unclaimed in 2002. Yeah right.
After getting quite a bit of well deserved criticism, including one guy who offered ITAA a $1000 bounty to find his unemployed programmer buddy a job, they released an update scaling back their optimistic outlook. They still spin the industry as an under-staffed career option among other rosy interpretations. The problem is, these reports are relied on by all sorts of people who have a very real effect on my career opportunities:
After getting quite a bit of well deserved criticism, including one guy who offered ITAA a $1000 bounty to find his unemployed programmer buddy a job, they released an update scaling back their optimistic outlook. They still spin the industry as an under-staffed career option among other rosy interpretations. The problem is, these reports are relied on by all sorts of people who have a very real effect on my career opportunities:
- executives trying to decide whether or not to save money by outsourcing workload overseas
- Legislators looking to justify the continued availability of H-1B visas
- College students trying to decide on a career path
