Why is it so hard to find information technology workers?

Organizational Dynamics

Volumn 30, Issue 2, 2001, Pages 87-99

  Cappelli, Peter ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0035704412     PISSN: 00902616     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/S0090-2616(01)00045-6     Document Type: Article

References (2)

1. An exhaustive summary of the arguments about the state of the labor market for IT workers, and of the various labor market studies noted above, is provided in National Research Council, “Building a Workforce for the Information Economy,” (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2000) Among the more useful accounts about turnover in the industry is Carolyn M. Veneri, “Here Today, Jobs of Tomorrow: Opportunities in Information Technology,” Occupational Outlook Quarterly (Fall 1998). Studies about what determines success among IT workers include Denis M.S. Lee, “Knowledge/Skill Requirements and Professional Development of IS/OT Workforce: A Summary of Empirical Findings From Two Studies,” paper prepared for the Panel on Workforce Needs in Information Technology, National Academy of Sciences, 9 December 1999. Among the more systematic critiques of management practices in the industry are Norman Matloff, “Debunking the Myth of a Desperate Software Labor Shortage,” testimony to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee Subcomittee on Immigration, 21 April 1999/updated 8 April 2000; and, more generally for all technical workers, Stephen R. Barley, “Technicians in the Workplace: Ethnographic Evidence for Bringing Work into Organization Studies,” Administrative Science Quarterly, 41(3), 404–441.
2. Information about trends in IT education is presented in detail in Clifford Adelman, “Leading, Concurrent, or Lagging: The Knowledge Content of Computer Science In Higher Education and the Labor Market, ” U.S. Department of Education, May 1997. A classic description of lags in labor market adjustment is Richard B. Freeman, The Over-Educated American (New York: Academic Press, 1976). Among the critiques of immigration policy for IT workers is U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General/Office of Audit, “The Department of Labor’s Foreign Labor Certification Programs: The System is Broken and Needs to Be Fixed,” 22 May 1996.