IT workers.
Finding and hiring them.
Those are the issues that dominated the world of high tech companies in
Rhode Island and around the country this year.
Results of a recent survey by the Rhode Island Economic Policy Council,
which are expected to be released in late January, signal that those
issues will remain high on the agendas of computer, electronics,
software and telecommunications firms, and large companies with in-house
information technology departments. That’s because by conservative
estimates Rhode Island companies could create 1,813 new IT jobs in 1999,
according to Christopher Bergstrom, RIEPC’s executive director.
RIEPC sent out about 400 surveys to companies around the state and the
86 businesses that responded reported plans to add 630 jobs in 1999,
Bergstrom said. RIEPC based its projections on that data. An optimistic
look at the results, however, projects as many as 2,700 new IT jobs, he
said.
Those figures do not include business start ups.
With companies already struggling to find qualified workers to fill IT
jobs, it doesn’t look like things will get any easier since Rhode Island
colleges and universities are only expected to graduate 335 computer
science majors, Bergstrom added.
“That’s quite a gap between supply and demand,” he said. “But it’s not
unique to Rhode Island.”
University of Rhode Island economist Leonard Lardaro said the state’s
high tech sector must continue to grow, because “we’re going to need
some stable sources of growth and income.
“As the national economy slows, we’re going to slow even more what we
need to do is try to set up a source of job gains,” Lardaro explained.
One way of doing that, he added, is to encourage high tech start up
companies.
He agreed that training for software programmers needs to be improved.
“Forget the tax incentives if you don’t have the people trained to do
the jobs,” Lardaro said.
Until a solution is found, high tech companies will continue to scramble
to fill IT jobs, including applying for visas available for foreign
workers.
“That’s a piece of the solution but you’re talking about a shortage
nationally,” Bergstrom said. “Obviously it’s not a problem that can be
solved primarily or exclusively by importing foreign workers.”
In a July interview Susan Reid owner of OnLine Staff, Inc., said her
temporary employment agency, which specializes in filling high skilled
computer positions, isn’t really having a problem finding qualified
workers to fill jobs.
“We’re not having a problem finding people, we’re really not,” Reid
said. “I think the problem we have now is that the pricing is really
starting to go through the roof. It is hard to find the talent that our
clients want, at the price they want to pay.”
What’s ahead then for companies trying to fill IT jobs?
“I think they’re going to scramble to fill jobs, they’re going to
continue to try to steal each others workers (and retrain workers),”
Bergstrom said. “They’re going to get very creative about it, we’ve
found they’re extremely willing to work with us in coming up with a
solution.”
Fifty-one percent of the survey respondents agreed to work on a solution
with RIEPC, he added.
In other high tech highlights, the budding Rhode Island Software
Association got a new name, a new logo, a new executive director, and
launched an online educational program aimed at helping train high tech
workers.
Why change the barely two-year-old association’s name to Rhode Island
Technology Council?
Board members indicated the software association title too narrowly
labeled the organization, and did not accurately reflect the diverse
group of companies on its membership roster. Though a number of
companies that only develop software belonged to RISA, organizations
with large information technology departments and an interest in
technology also belonged, such as GTECH, Fidelity Investments, and the
University of Rhode Island.
Local high tech companies continued to plug away promoting themselves,
their products and the state. Participants in the first Providence ITEC
conference declared it a success for business leads, and for giving the
state some high tech street credibility. And 1999 looks to be no
different, since eight of 10 U.S. companies participating in a February
trade mission to Toronto, Canada’s high tech epicenter, will be from
Rhode Island.
And Complete Business Solutions Inc., a worldwide information technology
company based in Michigan, was on the acquisition trail this year,
making deals that gave it ownership of two companies with offices in
Rhode Island. CBSI’s purchase of c.w. Costello & Associates Inc. early
in 1998 could bring 100 new jobs to the state in the months to come. The
company also purchased Sudbury River Consulting Services, which is a 25
person company based in Providence, for $5 million in December.
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