ITAA's Machine Working in Boston

Date: Thursday, May 30, 2002 2:01 PM

*** H-1B NEWSLETTER ***

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

Lazy reporters like this one tend to just copy and paste from Harris
Miller's propaganda sheet at
http://www.itaa.org/news/pr/PressRelease.cfm?ReleaseID=1020695700

Notice in the article that Harris Miller has over 500 corporate
sponsors.
ZaZona.com has zero corporate sponsors. This isn't a fair fight!

I have been sending a lot of newsletters lately about Miller's media
blitz.
Make no mistake about it, he is leading an effort to increase the number
of
H-1Bs allowed per year and to reduce the $1000 fee per visa. Miller's
success record is about 100%. Don't take these articles lightly because
Congress listens to him, not us.

You will love the way this reporter pretends to be objective. Scroll all
the
way to the last sentence or you might miss it.

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/126/business/For_IT_workers_guarded_optimi
sm_about_jobs+.shtml

For IT workers, guarded optimism about jobs

By Diane Lewis, Globe Staff, 5/6/2002

Demand for technology workers looks surprisingly strong despite the
recent
hiring slump and a churning of jobs, according to the Information
Technology
Association of America. Even coming out of a recession, the ITAA says,
certain categories of specialized programming and security jobs will be
hard
to fill.

The association reports that US companies, struggling to come to grips
with
the economic slowdown, shed 528,496 information technology jobs last
year
but will seek to fill as many as 1.1 million high-tech jobs over the
next 12
months.

A study set to be released today by the ITAA, a Washington-based public
policy and trade group, demonstates how the falloff in capital spending
and
expectations of a recovery have roiled the job market for so-called IT
workers - an important component of the economy in Massachusetts and
other
technology-dependent states.

But while the study shows companies would like to hire twice as many
people
as they let go over the coming year, it also predicts that 578,711 of
the
prospective new jobs - more than half - could go unfilled because of a
lack
of qualified candidates knowledgable in IT security and programming
languages such as C++, Oracle, SQL, Java, and Windows NT.

The ITAA reports that the nation's work force of information technology
professionals fell 5 percent to 9.9 million in early 2002 as companies,
from
computer giants to Internet start-ups to manufacturers and retailers,
pared
their payrolls to stay alive or remain competitive.

Called ''Bouncing Back: Jobs, Skills and the Continuing Demand for IT
Workers,'' the report says US companies hired 2.1 million IT workers
over
the past year, but dismissed 2.6 million. Technology companies cut their
IT
staffs by 15 percent, while non-technology companies reduced theirs by 4
percent, the report says. Ninety-two percent of all information
technology
workers are employed by companies in other industrial sectors.

The ITAA attributed what it called last year's ''backward tumble'' to
the
weakening in the economy. ''Many large companies shed workers in the
past
year, a response to stock prices in free fall and corporations calling a
halt to capital spending,'' the report says.

Harris Miller, president of the association, which has about 500
corporate
members, said companies appear to be optimistic about the future now,
but
they are also guarded.

''The past 12 months have been a painful time for many IT
professionals,''
Miller said. ''I think it's important to remember, however, that our
economy
is based on high tech and the skills of high-tech workers. The economy
has
turned a corner on the future, and this study suggests that companies
and
employees may be turning the corner on the recession.''

Jack Mohan, president of Management Recruiters International in Boston,
said
small and midsize companies are doing some selective hiring within the
industry already, fueling a slight increase in recruitment activity.

''Some of the big companies, particularly the large consulting firms,
were
overstocked with employees in anticipation of future needs,'' Mohan
said.
''They had planned to staff up, and then they realized that the
recession
was a good excuse to reduce the number of marginal people and strengthen
their teams.

''Other big companies laid off IT people in order to make their
quarterly
numbers,'' he added. ''Now smaller firms are scooping up some of those
people to help grow their businesses.''

Technical support workers were more likely to be laid off than software
programmers and engineers, who comprise 21 percent of the IT work force,
the
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