More ITAA Propaganda Reported as News

Date: Monday, May 06, 2002 10:29 AM

*** H-1B NEWSLETTER ***

Get the Facts on H-1B at www.ZaZona.com

Reporters for the SJ Mercury News always jump on the chance to report
about
another huge shortage of programmers and Harris Miller's Information
Technology Association of America (ITAA) just gave them something to
shout
about. You can bet that variants of this article will appear all over
the
nation because newspapers think Harris Miller is a high priest of
high-tech
truth. Reporters blindly report every new propaganda campaign by the
ITAA
and pretend that these "studies" have some basis in reality.

The General Accounting Office (GAO) had the best description of the ITAA
that I have come across so I will share it with you. This appears in the
full 1998 GAO report GAO/HEHS-98-106R "IT: Assessment of the Department
of
Commerce's Report on Workforce Demand and Supply" (not available
online):

"ITAA's estimate of the number of unfilled IT jobs is
based on reported vacancies, and adequate information
about those vacancies is not provided, such as how
long positions have been vacant, whether wages offered
are sufficient to attract qualified applicants, and
whether companies consider jobs filled by contractors
as vacancies. These weaknesses tend to undermine the
reliability of ITAA's survey findings."

Last January Miller predicted that more than 400,000 technology jobs
nationwide would go unfilled in 2001. If course his rationale was that
the
only way to fill these vacancies was by increasing the H-1B quota.
Suddenly
every major newspaper in the country was quoting Miller. They were all
bleating that H-1Bs were necessary for our nation to exist and warning
that
our entire economic system will collapse if companies are not allowed to
import more of these high-tech temps.

Now Miller is saying that 600,000 jobs will be unfilled in 2002 because
of a
massive boom in high tech hiring. I laughed so hard I almost fell out of
my
chair I read Miller's pathetic excuse for his faulty predictions:

``They [hiring managers] were all fairly optimistic 14
months ago,'' said Miller, although that optimism turned
out to be misplaced. ``What we're finding is that they're
optimistic again.''

Based on past performance, if the people that Harris Miller talks to are
optimistic again, this nation is in real trouble. My guess is that
Harris
Miller and his high tech sponsors will be asking for another increase in
H-1B so that these 600,000 imaginary positions can be filled. There are
still plenty of American workers that can be replaced with the cheap
young
blood of H-1Bs and Harris Miller is leading the way.

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/3205615.htm

Posted on Sun, May. 05, 2002

Nationwide boom in tech hiring predicted this year

By Margaret Steen
Mercury News

After a year of massive layoffs and the loss of more than half a million
technology jobs nationwide, the managers who hire technology workers
predict
so much hiring in 2002 that they won't be able to fill all the jobs.

A survey released today by the Information Technology Association of
America
shows that the number of technology jobs in the United States fell from
10.4
million in 2001 to 9.9 million in early 2002, about a 5 percent drop.

Beneath those numbers is evidence of even greater turmoil in the job
market:
The overall job loss came from companies eliminating 2.6 million
positions
while hiring 2.1 million workers. The survey also found that demand for
IT
workers in the West has fallen 71 percent since 2000, suggesting that
local
workers' situation may be worse than the nationwide picture.

But for 2002, hiring managers at both high-tech and non-tech companies
said
they expect to have more than 1.1 million technology jobs available. And
they predict they won't be able to fill almost 600,000 of those jobs
because
they won't be able to find qualified applicants.

This may come as a surprising finding to the more than 70,000 unemployed
workers in Santa Clara County, many of whom are from the technology
industry. But Harris Miller president of the ITAA, said the survey is
for
the entire country, not just Silicon Valley, and it looks forward rather
than reflecting the current situation.

Technology jobs in Silicon Valley are heavily concentrated at technology
companies. But in many other parts of the country, the bulk of the
technology jobs involve running computer systems for non-tech industries

some of which haven't been hit as hard by the recession.

``When the economy comes back, the jobs may be with an IT services firm
on
the East Coast or a bank in Chicago,'' Miller said. ``If someone says,
`I
want to stay in Silicon Valley and work for a dot-com,' they might be
waiting a long time.''

The survey is only as accurate as the predictions of the managers who
answered the questions. And those managers are optimistic. Of course,
this
doesn't guarantee that their predictions will come to pass; a similar
survey
last January predicted that more than 400,000 technology jobs nationwide
would go unfilled in 2001.

``They were all fairly optimistic 14 months ago,'' said Miller, although
that optimism turned out to be misplaced. ``What we're finding is that
they're optimistic again.''

One worker who bought into the bullish feeling last year was Bruce
Arnot,
co-principal of Skye Construction Consulting in San Rafael.

Arnot wanted to move into technology, preferably a full-time job with a
high-tech company in Silicon Valley. He started taking e-commerce
courses
through UC-Berkeley Extension. But just as he started inquiring about
jobs,
the layoffs started. Arnot decided to use his newly acquired technology
skills as a consultant to construction companies.

``With all this lack of stability, it just seemed safer to me,'' Arnot
said.
He still hopes to make his way into a job with a high-tech company, but
he
wants to gain experience and wait out the recession first. ``There will
be
more jobs to come. It's just a matter of timing.''

So will Silicon Valley job-hunters benefit from the competition for
skilled
workers that the hiring managers predict?

Bob Lee, CEO of Manpower Staffing Services/California Peninsula in San
Jose,
said he thinks hiring will pick up quickly once demand for technology
products picks up, but it's not clear how soon that will be.

``A lot of good people with a lot of good talent are on the street,''
Lee
said. ``When things pick up those people will be hired back. I think the
crunch is going to come when we've hired the people with competent skill
sets back again.''

Many workers who have been laid off will likely be rehired, but Miller
said
the changing demands of the technology industry, along with some job
seekers' high salary expectations and unwillingness to relocate, may be
obstacles for others.

In addition, managers at technology companies said almost half of their
positions would likely be for mid-level candidates; non-tech companies
were
more likely to be looking for entry-level and senior candidates. This
could
make the job market more difficult for entry-level and more experienced
workers in Silicon Valley.

The study by the ITAA, a national association of high-tech employers,
was
sponsored by a number of groups and companies, including the American
Association of Community Colleges, Cisco Systems, Intel and Microsoft.
It
was based on a telephone survey in February and March of 532 randomly
selected managers at U.S. companies with more than 50 employees.

Contact Margaret Steen at msteen@sjmercury.com or (408) 278-3499.

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