There just won't be enough people with the skills and interest to keep all those plates spinning. (Ever seen a Chinese acrobat, plates on sticks ?) ******************************************

From: Electronic Engineering Times 12/14/98

Presidential panel also sees IT-worker shortage -- Wanted: long-term R&D focus Craig Matsumoto Electronic Engineering Times 12/14/98 Livermore, Calif. - A presidential committee is recommending a greater focus on long-term research, particularly in software. The committee also concluded that there is, in fact, an employment shortage in information technology (IT) that is hampering U.S. industry.

The results from the Presidential IT Advisory Committee (PITAC) were presented to Congress in an interim report in August, with the final report expected to be complete in time for President Clinton's State of the Union address in January.

Finally, the committee studied employment and social issues tied to computing, particularly the controversial shortage of IT workers, which the committee believes does exist. Answering criticisms that the shortage is created by companies' refusal to hire and retrain older workers, Cooper said, "That's kind of like saying we don't have enough physicians, so we'll take these Ph.D. physicists and train them to do the same thing."

Evidence of the shortage came not only from committee members but from interviews with academia. "We heard professors tell us stories about students being hired at the sophomore and junior level, getting jobs paying $80,000 or $90,000 a year," Cooper said.

In non-technical fields, employment is an even more severe issue: "Information technology is putting a lot of people out of their jobs," Cooper said. "As we move to an electronic society we have to look at the effects of that."

December 14, 1998

-- runway cat (runway_cat@hotmail.com), December 14, 1998

Answers

Just one problem with this article RC - most of the interviewees are lying through their teeth. They are trying to get permission to 'import' more workers to keep US salaries in the CS fields low. Read this link

http://www.disgruntled.com/matloff798.html

and this one

http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/itaa.html

Read them - then be glad the govt. isn't screwing you more than they are me.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), December 15, 1998.