It’s the mismatch of a lifetime: young Americans who are unemployed or underemployed, and an IT field that needs tens of thousands of new people. Why aren’t masses of unemployed young people flocking to this area of demand and good pay?
Good question. CompTIA came up with one answer.
CompTIA’s Tim Herbert, vice president of research, reported on the findings of a recent CompTIA study to provide some possible answers to this question. The study – formulated with the responses of one thousand 13 to 24 year olds – revealed that many of these kids embrace technology and are facilitators, but often rule out an IT as result of a bad perception of the field and a lack of education about what IT careers are available. As Herbert explained, the category of “IT” is expansive and ill-defined, but research has shown that when teenager and adults are educated about the various career paths, there has been significantly higher interest.
http://blog.comptia.org/2012/07/23/comptia-and-congressional-caucus-hold-a-briefing-on-young-people-and-it-careers/
Note the two reasons:
- A bad perception of IT
- Lack of education on available IT fields
Also note that CompTIA’s proposed response only addresses the second problem.
I think it’s much more important to ask: Why do young people think IT sucks as a career? Here the very business community that is crying for skilled workers can look in the mirror for the answer. To put it bluntly, young people have been paying attention, and what they’ve seen is companies jettisoning those “too expensive” employees and sending the work overseas.
Right here in Albuquerque, a friend of mine worked until recently as an engineer for the Chinese-founded and Chinese-operated Emcore. Most of his work involved frequent trips to China to train engineers. Surprise, surprise! Recently he was laid off, and Emcore is shutting down American operations. Its CEO returns to China having successfully exported our technology and our jobs.
With lessons like this in every daily newspaper, is it any wonder that young Americans cast a skeptical eye on technology jobs? Now that’s gotta be good for our country, no?