The incredible shrinking IT workforce

According to InformationWeek, the next generation of IT professionals isn't materializing as planned:

By virtually every measure, the number of young people interested in computer science is growing smaller: There are fewer college students declaring it as a major, fewer high school students taking Advanced Placement courses, and fewer teachers able or willing to impart anything beyond basic word processing skills.

All this in the generation that learned to utter the word "computer" right after "mom" and "dad"--and sometimes before. These kids grew up knowing how to program VCRs and cell-phones, they play amazingly sophisticated computer games, and they keep in touch with their friends via Instant Messenger, complete with its own language and social mores. I don't believe it's overly dramatic to say that computers and technology figure in virtually every aspect of their lives, whether they know it or not.

The lack of interest isn't due to an extreme shortage of jobs in the field. Economy notwithstanding, programmers and networking experts continue to be among the most sought-after of all knowledge workers, and that trend is expected to continue for quite some time.

We've noted this trend before, actually as a precursor to a coming IT job boom. InformationWeek attributes this dropoff in interest to a pereception among students that IT is losing its "cool". Even experienced workers, beset by long hours and the "exploding-head syndrome" are taking a dimmer view of IT as a career choice, despite above-average salaries.

I suspect that this sentiment is more widespread among full-time employees than it is among professional IT consultants. For one thing, consultants are paid for every hour they work and often work strict 40-hour weeks. For another, they move from project to project at different companies, so there is much more opportunity to stretch themselves and learn new skills. At the same time, the focused nature of project work makes it less likely that the consultant will get defocused on side-issues not relevant to the deliverables. As we have highlighted in an earlier post, recent study by Kelly Services showed job satisfaction among so-called "free agents" to be quite high.

New Equities recently held a roundtable discussion with several IT consultants in the Charlotte area. The prevailing sentiment among those who attended was that they vastly preferred consulting on a project basis to conventional employment at a single company because of the variety of assignments, the constant change, and the ability to develop professionally. The obvious downside was the anxiety that accompanies lining up the next assignment so as to have peace of mind.

The concept behind New Equities is to maximize the flexibility, variety and opportunity for growth (not to mention good pay!) that motivates many people to pursue consulting careers, while minimizing the anxiety by leveraging our network to keep people working. In short, we think it's possible for IT professionals to have the best of both worlds.

UPDATE: Jim Ware of The Future of Work links to this post with his observations, as well as a call for thoughts on the nature of IT work and what the IT industry should do about the coming talent shortage. Our response follows in the comments; we welcome you to do likewise, either here or there.

One point that came up: above we state that IT consultants are paid for every hour they work and often work strict 40-hour weeks. We know of course that this isn't true across the board, especially for independents and entrepreneurs, but many in IT consultants are deployed through staffing firms for larger clients who limit the number of hours that can be worked in a week. If you are an IT consultant, has that been your experience?