NPR recently completed a special series called “New Jobs for a new Decade.”
One part of this series that really caught my attention was that a lot of research indicates that the tech sector will be creating millions of jobs by the middle of the decade.
“The research and consulting firm IDC estimates that 1 million new technology-related jobs will be created over the next four or five years — an increase of about 10 percent.”
So what does this mean to employers? The other big take away is that if your company is positioned for growth in the coming year you may want to think about hiring, purely based upon the fact that there is REAL talent out there now that may be unemployed.
The other message for employers is to prepare for the future by taking care of the talent you have now, because once the economy starts to turn around technical talent it will be tougher to find and tougher to retain. This brings me back to a post that now infamous software company owner, blogger Joel Spolsky wrote a couple years ago called “A Field Guide to Developers“.
Joel’s points from 2006 still ring true today for our creative, technical work force and how to retain and recruit great designers and software developers.
Every technical manager that hasn’t read this article should, because it is a great guide on how to prepare for the future when the economy turns around.