IT employment prospects in 2004: a mixed bag

Signs of general economic recovery and renewed IT sector growth are dampened for IT workers globally by improved productivity and locally by a global labor market. Since 1999 - when US business magazine cover stories described IT positions going unfilled and extensive congressional lobbying to increase quotas for overseas workers to fill them - the US IT job market has changed drastically, losing more than a million jobs. For US workers, this change raises two different but complementary questions. First, what are the prospects for the global IT workforce in the near and longer term? Second, how will IT jobs be distributed among competing labor markets around the world? The first question addresses total demand for IT workers. The second addresses the economics of business investments and how governments, universities, communities, and individuals can compete successfully for them.