PC Net General Manager Brian Plunkett currently has two technical support positions open on his 26-member staff, but he says the pool of qualified applicants is shrinking.
Mind the Gap
Emily Letterman
Posted online
The talent can’t keep up with the tech. It’s a conundrum companies face as they struggle to fill open information technology positions in an ever-advancing technological landscape.
Springfield-based PC Net Inc. General Manager Brian Plunkett currently has two open slots on his staff.
“Over the last 12 months, we’ve seen our number of hires change – there is a decrease in selection,” he said of the industry job market. “There just aren’t as many people to choose from.”
Plunkett isn’t alone. Demand for tech talent continues to grow. In January, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City announced plans to hire up to 200 IT pros within three years. According to tech website Computerworld’s 2015 annual forecast survey of IT executives, 24 percent of respondents said their companies plan to add more IT employees in the year ahead.
The only problem is where to find them.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the unemployment rate for IT professionals was just under 3 percent in the fourth quarter, the lowest level since 2008. Overall, about 72,300 tech jobs were added last year, a 3.2 percent increase compared to 2013. The BLS expects the industry to increase by 6.1 percent annually through 2020.
In the Springfield area, IT and computer sciences rank among the top five in-demand jobs, with 8 percent of all employment ads in the those fields, according to the 2015 MOmentum survey of seven local counties.
“Tech is such a central part of our lives and things change so rapidly. Employers need more and more people to manage their tech use,” said Mary Ann Rojas, director of workforce development for the city of Springfield. “There is a gap between what we have and what we need.”
Springfield outlook Conducted by the Workforce Investment Board and the Missouri Career Center-Ozark Region, the inaugural MOmentum survey found 25-30 percent of organizations surveyed plan to hire additional full- or part-time employees over the next year, with 71 percent reporting at least some open positions require employees to have a background in STEM fields – science, technology, engineering or mathematics.
Based on the survey, administered by Springfield’s Opinion Research Specialists LLC that polled 368 business and educational institutions in Greene, Taney, Christian, Webster, Polk, Dallas and Stone counties, in addition to IT, the jobs most needed in the next five to 10 years are in business, management and administration; and marketing, sales and service.
Rojas said southwest Missouri numbers are in line with state and national statistics. Within the past six months, roughly 17,000 STEM jobs opened in the St. Louis area alone, and 12 percent of all employment ads in the Kansas City area fell within STEM fields.
“We weren’t surprised,” Rojas said. “This survey will set a baseline for our needs, helping us align our efforts going forward.
“We still have a skills gap, we know that. I think we are going to see more synergy on a regional level going forward. We have new leaders, such as in the K-12 arena, and other key areas.”
Growing need Missouri State University computer science department head Ken Vollmar said he’s seen department majors double in the last four years, with fall semester admitted students in the program up 25 percent over the previous year.
With roughly 300 students in his department, Vollmar said it still isn’t enough to fill the coming need.
“Technology is changing faster than we can think of ways to use it,” he said. “I think we are to the point where we are caught up with things like Web pages. They are well understood, and we can meet that demand. However, something like mobile app production, we aren’t caught up in the slightest.
“As we teach today’s technology, there is other tech just around the corner. It takes time to become skilled in software development. You need time to be decent, but you need to be quick to meet the demand. There is a definite lag there.”
The U.S. Department of Education reports only 16 percent of American high school seniors are proficient in mathematics and interested in a STEM career. Among those who pursue a college major in STEM fields, only about half choose to work in a related career. It means the United States is falling behind, ranking 25th in mathematics and 17th in science among industrialized nations, according to the DOE.
“There just aren’t enough students going into computer science as it is, and we need more,” Vollmar said. “It’s a challenging program, but there are so many things you can do with those skills.”
Vollmar said after graduation, his majors often go to work in the Springfield area at such companies as O’Reilly Automotive Inc., Associated Electric Cooperative Inc. and Executive Data Control.
But Vollmar said if more students don’t sign on soon, the effect on the industry could be chilling.
“If we don’t have enough in the workforce, that tends to encourage or force employers to look overseas for talent,” he said. “The number of employers who are trying to acquire computer science students doesn’t compare to the number of graduates we are producing.
