The disconnect: Thousands of IT-savvy professionals laid off, but CIOs can't find any to hire?

Companies need to invest more in training IT workers

Unlike most employees in most organizations, IT workers require ongoing, regular training in the latest technologies and concepts because the IT industry changes faster than most others. To maintain the productive edge, training must be proportionally higher in the IT area than in other departments or operations.

IT is learning-intensive. A significantly higher percentage of an IT worker's day is spent learning versus that of other types of employees. Many companies assume the training budget should be spread equally across all departments but this is not effective because the IT department is more learning-intensive than others.

If the same amount is invested in training IT workers as say, those in accounting, marketing, management and other workers that spend more time practicing their skills instead of learning new skills then the IT department actually falls behind and can't perform relative to the other departments. This pulls the entire company down because IT is the back-bone of the whole show.

The most apparent 'work-around' companies seem to favor is the practice of removing people that have been there a while and replacing them with new (cheaper) employees that come already equipped with the latest skills. This way, they avoid the whole 'training' investment altogether. Then when the 'new generation' begins to require significant training, they go too- only to be replaced by another wave of employees already possessing the latest skills.

This vicious cycle leads to burnout, frustration and constant job changing. It also perpetuates the image that the IT field is too unstable to attract people to the industry to the point that now there ARE no new cheap employees with the latest-greatest skill sets as defined by the hiring companies. They've all gone into accounting, marketing and management.

It also makes it easier for companies to justify hiring foreign workers on visas since they can claim that they 'can't find qualified candidates' here in the US. Of course they can't- they won't take the responsibility to train them!

The last question Betts

The last question Betts posts is interesting. With so many unemployed IT professionals, HR departments now have quality candidates to hire, but how do they find the best matches for their company? A new Web 2.0 recruiting network aimed specifically at technology workers has just started this year, itzbig, (www.itzbig.com). Maybe some of those 10,000 laid-off workers could benefit from it (and ultimately the CIOs)

Developing the over 50 crowd

Developing the over 50 crowd is long OVER DUE!

Kids coming out of college just don't know that much and exchanging them to achieve lower salaries (thanks, bean counters) will eventually mean the entire company folds (sells off to Oracle, Google, HP, CISCO, IBM, etc). The CIO's don't have to move to India. They cash out and go to retirement!