Supply Chain Reaction

Tech job growth seems to be returning to the United States, and it’s big news because the last time the industry heard the words “job growth” muttered was back around 2000. But at 4 percent growth, it’s not quite a boom, more of a fizzle.

Don’t get me wrong. Four percent is 4 percent, in this case some 150,000 jobs. Job growth is good. But offshoring continues and that’s one of the real culprits when examining the high-tech employment situation here in the United States.

There is a global demand for employees skilled in engineering, programming and other proficiencies that demand higher-level technology knowledge, yet as a country we turn out an embarrassingly low number of tech grads, especially when our affluence as a nation is considered.

Why are we celebrating a 4 percent growth in jobs and not an 8 percent, 12 percent or 15 percent growth? In part, because we can’t fill the seats with lower salaried employees, i.e. new grads, and companies go overseas. Besides the United States lack of qualified recent grads, we keep our high-tech visa system so tight that the application inbox fills within two days. Adding to that, our system seems to dump any engineer over the age of 50 – and that’s like choosing a wine cooler over a bottle of fine wine. To summarize, we have experienced employees who can add true value to the U.S., but can't find jobs; a lack of interest and ability coming from the next-generation; and an inability to import needed workers.

Obviously this is a very complex issue and one mere blog post won’t solve it, but I have to ask: How many different elements can we as a nation force against ourselves before we lose our last bit of competitiveness?